[Bush2000]

then why is Microsoft so afraid to go with Suns' proposed XML document format as an INDUSTRY STANDARD? if M$ features are so great, they'll keep the business. or is it only the proprietary format that keeps them on the reservation??

Because it's redundant. It doesn't provide any more functionality than RTF and DOC. It's merely XML. Whoopie sh*t.

[chilepepper]

Its not redundant if you want to build and integrated document processing system (.NET anyone) since it makes things so easy to pass back & forth...

of course, a number of OpenSource packages already use XML to represent things (the printer machinery for example). i was under the impression (mistakenly, it seems) that Microsoft was a enthusiastic early proponent of XML??