Big steps today towards meeting the commitments that the company has made to interoperability with our high volume products.
You’ll find the details in a press release here;
Highlights of the actions announced today include: posting Version 1.0 releases of technical documentation for Microsoft protocols built into Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007; posting nearly 5,000 pages of new technical documentation for the Microsoft Office binary file formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint (.doc, .xls, .xlsb and .ppt); and making significant strides in the company’s efforts to foster more open engagement with other members of the IT community.
“Today’s actions represent Microsoft’s continued fulfillment of the commitments it made in its Interoperability Principles,” said Craig Shank, general manager of Interoperability at Microsoft. “Microsoft’s cumulative posting of approximately 50,000 pages of technical documentation on MSDN provides consistent, open access for all developers, which enhances the ease and opportunities for working with Microsoft’s high-volume products. Moreover, our work with partners, competitors and customers to engage in the technical nuts-and-bolts of real-world interoperability provides great ongoing opportunities for collaboration to address the challenges of today’s diverse IT environment.”
The press release also talks about three other initiatives that underway, the first of which is highly important to anybody doing work with the Chinese UOF standard which is getting a lot of airtime here in Asia;
- Working with Beihang University to develop Uniform Office Format (UOF) translators for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint so that users will have more options to open and save UOF documents in Microsoft Office 2007 and 2003; more information can be found on the project page on SourceForge.
- Designing a new translator to read from Open XML to HTML, which will provide the opportunity for independent software vendors(ISVs) to enable their customers to launch Open XML documents using lightweight browser-friendly applications; more information can be found on the project page on CodePlex.
- Developing PowerTools PowerShell commands for Open XML to enable IT administrators to perform document management tasks; more information can be found up on CodePlex.
Doug Mahugh has some pointers for anybody looking for additional support for the documentation that was released today;
The documentation is supported on a group of User Forums that are organized by general topic. If you have specific questions about the details, that’s the place to get them answered, and for more information about the things we’re doing to enable interoperability with Office see today’s press release or the Microsoft interop site.
As I have said on this blog a few times now, there is still a lot of work to do, but this should be a sign that we’re committed to following through on the promises that we have made around interoperability.
Stay tuned for a lot more during coming months.
Stay tuned for a lot more during coming months.
Such as bullshitting the legislators and regulators and administration of foreign nations? The EU IDABC European Interoperability framework (EIF) version 2 draft is not even out but the Microsoft lobby machine is already running at full speed and bullies the Commission.
http://www.managingip.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=1964355&LS=EMS189365
http://w3.bsa.org/eupolicy/press/newsreleases/062508pr.cfm
By the way, at the recent EIF info day IDABC staff mentioned OOXML as an example for an format that qualifies as open. Quite shocking for many participants. And don’t mention the Gartner…
Yes, I read about the reference at the EIF info day and I am, of course, inclined to agree. OpenXML might not fit the deffinition of an open standard that is pushed by some of the voices out there, but it clearly fits the deffinition used and understood by others.
I woud like to think that eventually consumers will decide which format and/or deffinition is right for them and in what context.
Andre, I carefully read the two things you references. They were quite interesting. However, you characterization of them as “Microsoft bullying” is absoluely off base. Just where the heck is your brain?
Accroding to what you linked, the EIF is proposing to so narrowly define interoperability as to exclude from usage for European inter-governmental communication things like GSM phones, Wi-Fi systems, CD’s, Bluetooth, etc. (and the list goes on). Wow!
As for this being bullying, it is no such thing. It’s just pointing out that the EIF don’t know what they’re talking about, in very straightforward language.
As for it being Microsoft that is doing it, no. According to your own linked artciales, here is the list of companies who are pointing out the stupidity:
Acca Software, Adobe, Altium, Apple, Attachmate, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, CA, Cadence Design Systems, Centennial Software, Cisco Systems, CNC Soft-ware/Mastercam, Corel, Dell, EMC, Enteo, Graphisoft, HiT Internet Technologies, HP, IBM, Inaz, Intel, Intergraph, LMS International, Mamut, ManageSoft, Materialise Software, McAfee, Microsoft, Microstar, Mindjet, Monotype Imaging, Nemetschek, O&O Software, Panda Software, PTC, Quark, Quest Software, SAP, Scalable Software, SGS, Siemens PLM Software, SolidWorks, SP Grupo Sage, Softline Pastel, Staff & Line, Sybase, Symantec, Synopsys, Tekla, The MathWorks, and Trend Micro.
“Accroding to what you linked, the EIF is proposing to so narrowly define interoperability as to exclude from usage for European inter-governmental communication things like GSM phones, Wi-Fi systems, CD’s, Bluetooth, etc. (and the list goes on). Wow!”
Yes, according to what I linked. Cheap propaganda.
So, what is that EIF really about if all this is false? It is basically for the procurement of internal software for the European Commission. Here they start a process to identify and evaluate standards and move towards more interoperable solutions. However, no one says they would only be using “open standards and specifications” as they define them. The whole framework is not static in any way.
All this would be of no significance if there wasn’t a definition for open standards that does not meet the redefinition attempts by your lobby community. Note that we can discuss whether there should be legacy formats and other standards and formats, provided by various standard bodies and consortia. I can’t see how they want to rule them out. In fact they just aim for “open standards” and a fuzzy more of interoperability.
And at the IDABC workshop in the last presentation was beating a bit the drum for open source, again for Commission internal software developed by the Commission, uhm well. I am aware of two bigger web application projects so far. It was also a means to provoke quite a bit and to flex the muscles. Nothing more. And of course they know that lobbying against them would make them even stronger and more popular inside the EU-Commission. Other departments are a bit envy that they get so much exposure. Just like putting a flag on an uninhabited island.
Hugo Lueders of CompTIa was complaining about *mandatory* “open standards” with the IDABC staff. But this is not what its all about and why shouldn’t a Commission decide on its own what standards it goes for. Basically the lobbyists are out of touch with the process although they track it for four years. I only drives the Commission more and more angry, they fortify their process better, they create more processes in the case one gets under attack and further expand it.
Two weeks ago I had a look at the eIF v1 again and wonder why there was all this heavy lobbying against it. It is so moderate and rational. It is just a recommendation, like a research paper. It became popular because of the resistance to it. Now the EIF v2 draft will be a clumsy alternative with all backdoors, just to preserve the simple EIF 1 mission.
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7704
http://europa.eu.int/idabc/3761