Microsoft Relents to Pressure On OpenDocument Format

The Wall Street Journal (Excerpt) (Subscription required) ^ | July 6, 2006 | ROBERT A. GUTH

[HAL9000]

Excerpt -

Microsoft Corp., bowing to pressure from governments, will offer free software that will let Word, Excel and PowerPoint handle documents in a rival technology format promoted by Sun Microsystems Inc., International Business Machines Corp. and others.

The Redmond, Wash., software maker today will post on the Internet software that will let users of Microsoft applications view and create documents in the OpenDocument Format.

~ snip ~

[HAL9000]

The report says the software "will be available free under an open-source license".

[TXnMA]

Predatory marketing? Microsoft? Never... </SARC>

[Maldarr]

Okay HAL, by the by, in 2010: Space Oddessey two,
they had a SAL ! - so maybe you have a date after all :-)

---

Though this is not directly related a story, I decided to convey it: : : : :

I was visiting the local library the other day,
and lo and behold, I found a guy who had his entire computer there on a desk in the public library .
Now you say this is not strange, but he had his entire PC discombobulated -- that is, all of the circuit boards(not just the Mobo) were all laid bare on the table .

The scuzzi's, the interfaces, the ports of all kinds -
all there with each with their own fans mounted on big heat sinks .
The CPU had a whole elaborate radiator assembly on top of his MPU .
At first I thought it was a mini-Fridge, but no, it was a passive system with Copper tubes as a heat sink connecting the radiator fins together ! !

He, this guy, said that his CPU or at least the Clock/Osc
speed was 3.7 GigaHertz - - - whoa !

The little hard drives, four of them, each ran at 15,400 RPM's .
If that was not enough, he had a program called: RAD that allowed the fixed disks to run even faster ! ! !

MOORE'S LAW HAS ALLREADY BEEN BROKEN

Personal Computers are not getting smaller(neither are the CPU's) ! ! ! !

[ShadowAce]

[bitt]

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=FT&Date=20060706&ID=5846482

Microsoft to offer open source document

Microsoft on Thursday bowed to pressure from governments to offer new free open source software that will allow its Office suite of programmes to handle documents in rival formats.

The company said it would develop tools to build a "technical bridge" between its own Open XML document format and the OpenDocument format (ODF).


"In addition to being made available as free, downloadable add-inns for several older versions of the Microsoft Office system, the translation tools will be developed and licensed as open source software," said Microsoft.

The company explained that the move was "in response to government requests for interoperability with ODF because they work with constituent groups that use that format".

ODF is a non-proprietary document format developed by a consortium of companies such as IBM, SAP and Sun Microsystems and set to be adopted by the US government as its standard for documents next year.

On Thursday, e-government chiefs welcomed Microsoft's move.

"This tool promises to be a very significant development in the trend towards practical open document standards and, critically, customer-friendly means to move between them," said Andrew Hopkirk, director of the e-government operability framework programme at the UK's National Computing Centre.

In a turnaround for the company, which typically keeps a firm grip on its source code, Microsoft stressed that the translation tools would be "broadly available" to the IT industry for use with other projects in a bid to boost interoperability and increase customer choice.

"We are sharing it with the industry by submitting it, with others, to become a worldwide standard. Yet it is very important that customers have the freedom to choose from a range of technologies to meet their diverse needs," said Jean Paoli, general manager of interoperability and XML architecture at Microsoft.

Microsoft's domination of the software market is under increasing pressure from the trend towards open source software brought on by the rise of the internet, with several governments favouring the Linux operating system over Microsoft's Windows and increasing numbers of internet users abandoning Internet Explorer for open source alternatives such as Mozilla Firefox.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is fighting attempts by the European Union to force it to reveal to rivals substantial amounts of technical information about its flagship Windows program as part of an antitrust case focusing on its Windows Media Player software.

[TechJunkYard]

.. software that will let users of Microsoft applications view and create documents in the OpenDocument Format.

Well, now that ODF is a real honest-to-God ISO Standard, there's no longer any excuse for MS not to support it.

So how much mindshare did MS lose in the business community because of that stupid little temper tantrum?

[TechJunkYard]

.. it is very important that customers have the freedom to choose from a range of technologies to meet their diverse needs..

Never thought I'd hear that from a Microsoft manager.

[ShadowAce]

Never thought I'd hear that from a Microsoft manager.

You have to read that in MS-spin mode. The freedom he's talking about is freedom to use MS products. Nothing more.

Like cults, they define words slightly different that normal folk.

[zeugma]

You have to read that in MS-spin mode. The freedom he's talking about is freedom to use MS products. Nothing more.

Not ojnly that, but this entire announcement is pretty much bogus. What they've announced sounds like something similar to the MS-Word Reader with the ability to do a 'save as..." or something.

All they needed to do was add a filter to Word/PP/Excel that will open/save in standard ODF format, and the ability to make it the default format. Instead they are trying once again to obfuscate things.
 

[Golden Eagle]

Like cults, they define words slightly different that normal folk.

Microsoft isn't a cult, it's what 90% of people use, you can't get any more mainstream than that! The cults lie in that remaining 10%, where some try to redefine words such as "free", and use silly phrases like "free as in beer" or "free as in speech" when they push their obscure and questionable products on the actual "normal folk".

[rzeznikj at stout]

"All they needed to do was add a filter to Word/PP/Excel that will open/save in standard ODF format, and the ability to make it the default format. Instead they are trying once again to obfuscate things."

IIRC, wasn't there a project to do just that?

[zeugma]

IIRC, wasn't there a project to do just that?

I don't know. I suspect they are more concerned at the moment with their inability to ship an upgrade to their flagship OS.

[VOA]

bump

[antiRepublicrat]

So how much mindshare did MS lose in the business community because of that stupid little temper tantrum?

Give'em a break. They were panicking over loss of lock-in.

[rzeznikj at stout]

I believe there was a plugin being developed on Sourceforge, and the Open Document Foundation recently released something.

[TechJunkYard]

The freedom he's talking about is freedom to use MS products. Nothing more.

Oh yes. MS-Doublespeak. I should have known.

Nothing new here.

[Petronski]

Not only that, but this entire announcement is pretty much bogus. What they've announced sounds like something similar to the MS-Word Reader with the ability to do a 'save as..." or something.

All they needed to do was add a filter to Word/PP/Excel that will open/save in standard ODF format, and the ability to make it the default format. Instead they are trying once again to obfuscate things.

Bingo! Deserves repeating.

[Calvin Locke]

I'm guessing it will come free with the purchase of Vista and Office 2010?