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December 7, 2006 11:31 AM PST

Microsoft sails through document standard vote

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Microsoft's document gambit moves ahead

December 7, 2006
Standards body Ecma International passed a vote to make Microsoft Office document formats an international standard on Thursday.

At the general assembly of Ecma International in Zurich, Switzerland, Microsoft's Office Open XML--a set of specifications detailing the document formats in Microsoft's office--was certified as a standard.

In addition, the membership-based standards organization voted to propose Office Open XML to the larger International Organization for Standardization (known as ISO) for standards approval through its fast-track process, according to Ecma.

related story
Microsoft's document gambit moves ahead
Standards vote could boost Office document format in race for desktop prominence.

The vote to accept Microsoft's submission as a standard was expected. The ISO standardization process typically takes about nine months, according to experts.

IBM, which has been a vocal advocate of another standard called open document, or ODF, voted against making Open XML a standard. ODF was passed earlier this month as an ISO standard.

The certification from ECMA--formerly known as the European Computer Manufacturers Association--marks about a year of work for a technical committee set up to standardize Office Open XML.

These document formats are the default for Office 2007, an upgrade to Microsoft's productivity suite that was released to businesses late last month and expected to be available to consumers next January.

Novell, which participated in the Ecma technical committee, intends to support Office Open XML in its distribution of the OpenOffice open-source productivity suite. Corel, which makes the WordPerfect Office suite, intends to support both Office Open XML and OpenDocument.

See more CNET content tagged:
ECMA, OpenDocument Format, Microsoft Office, XML, standard

Add a Comment (Log in or register) 32 comments (Showing first 20 comments)
So...
by Commander_Spock December 7, 2006 12:43 PM PST
... what will "The certification from ECMA--formerly known as the European Computer Manufacturers Association--marks about a year of work for a technical committee set up to standardize Office Open XML" do for my organization if Lotus Notes (HANNOVER) which "will include a set of office productivity tools which support the Open Document Format (ODF) standard. These productivity tools include word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation capabilities. "Hannover" users will be able to create, manage, edit, and import documents in ODF. The IBM productivity tools can also import and edit Microsoft Office documents and export those documents to ODF for sharing with ODF-comliant applications and solutions..." will be the only application we will ever need to complete the tasks at hand!
Reply to this comment View all 4 replies
How About...
by Commander_Spock December 7, 2006 2:40 PM PST
... the establishment of an American Office Sandards Specification: The rationale for this - India and China can/may soon pose a threat to the world's economy as we know it today and these countries may soon represent a stronger IT Industry than Europe which is not known to have had a significant IT Industry of their own; so, what "skills set" do they bring to the "table/international arena" to influence the rest of the world through the ECMA's approval of Microsoft's Office Open XML Standards!
Reply to this comment View reply
The real story
by curtegg December 8, 2006 7:19 AM PST
One part in a growing concern:

http://www.informationweek.com/news/
showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=WJMM4FHN15AL4QSNDLPCKH0CJUNN
2JVN?articleID=196601781&pgno=2&queryText=
Reply to this comment View reply
Commander_Spock is a talkbot
by lesfilip December 9, 2006 3:17 PM PST
Commander_Spock is a talkbot. It is hilarious to see Ryo having a
conversation with it. Commander_Spock is not human, folks.

Have a nice day!
Reply to this comment View reply
 See all 32 Comments >>
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