Getting Ready for the New Office
Yeah. Office needs to be touched up. No, it’s not about your office - it’s for Microsoft Office productivity suite. Currently, Microsoft Office is facing some serious threats from rivals such as Google Apps and Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice. Challenging the supremacy of MS Office, Sun’s StarOffice even proclaims that customers can have a full-featured office productivity suite that’s compatible with Microsoft Office, at just a slice of the cost. And on-demand CRM software major Salesforce has preferred to offer Google Apps to its customers.
Obviously, Microsoft has no other option but to stand up. So, it has decided to refurbish Microsoft Office by offering more document formats to users.
The company says that the 2007 Microsoft Office system already provides support for 20 different document formats within Microsoft Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint. With the release of Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 (SP2) scheduled for the first half of 2009, the list will grow to include support for XML Paper Specification (XPS), Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A, and Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1.
The ODF Alliance was quick to react, as it has greeted with scepticism Microsoft’s announcement to include support for the Open Document Format in the first half of 2009. “The proof will be whether and when Microsoft’s promised support for ODF is on par with its support for its own format. Governments will be looking for actual results, not promises in press releases,” said Marino Marcich, managing director of the ODF Alliance.
Microsoft explains that when using SP2, customers will be able to open, edit, and save documents using ODF and save documents into the XPS and PDF fixed formats from directly within the application without having to install any other code. It will also allow customers to set ODF as the default file format for Office 2007.
To also provide ODF support for users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office (Office XP and Office 2003), Microsoft will continue to collaborate with the open source community in the ongoing development of the Open XML-ODF translator project on SourceForge.net.
In addition, Microsoft has defined a road map for its implementation of the newly ratified International Standard ISO/IEC 29500 (Office Open XML). IS29500 - which was approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in March - that is already substantially supported in Office 2007. The company plans to update that support in the next major version release of the Microsoft Office system, code-named “Office 14.”
Adopting interoperability principles, the company has also announced it’ll be an active participant in the future evolution of ODF, Open XML, XPS and PDF standards.
These are among the steps that Microsoft is taking to move toward a computing regime that is fast embracing open systems. Microsoft is just responding to the market demand. Do you agree?
