Snagged out of the XML Daily Newslink for Tuesday, 15 May 2007 http://xml.coverpages.org/ <http://xml.coverpages.org/>
Reality Check: ODF vs. OpenXML Ephraim Schwartz, InfoWorld At the highest level, ODF (Open Document Format) vs. OpenXML is a battle between two business competitors, IBM and Microsoft, each of which views itself as threatened by the other. IBM and Microsoft have been in a battle for supremacy ever since they parted ways in 1991 over OS/2 and Windows. As unlikely as it sounds, the current battle is over an open file format for saving files, ODF or OpenXML, especially for word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation documents but not limited to those. To see whether I could sort out the differences between these formats, I gave both companies a call. Supported by Big Blue and many other high-tech companies, ODF is a standard both of the ISO and OASIS, which has about 300 members. OpenXML is supported by a smaller European standards group, ECMA International, which has 21 members, 20 of which voted to make it a standard, with only IBM voting no. OpenXML has also been proposed to the ISO and will be voted on in September. If OpenXML adoption is preferred, it closes the door on the opportunity for IBM to create a path to a myriad of IBM/Lotus on-premises and Web 2.0 products for such things as collaboration, unified communications, productivity software ,and even its WebSphere middleware platform. If on the other hand, ODF adoption, especially with government entities, grows over time it could have a viral effect and threaten Microsoft's largest revenue producing product, Office, and help IBM regain market share it lost to Outlook and Exchange Server as well... IBM's Sutor says that, although Microsoft has published all the specs for OpenXML, those specs total 6,000 page (12 reams of paper), which makes it almost impossible for anyone but Microsoft to incorporate the specs in a new productivity suite, thereby crowning Microsoft Office effectually the de facto standard, according to Sutor... Microsoft's Robertson and Jean Paoli, general manager for interoperability and XML architecture at Microsoft, see it quite differently. Robertson says that despite 6,000 pages of documentation there is already an implementation from DataViz for Palm OS, one by a company called Numeric for spreadsheets, that Novell has an implementation of OpenXML for OpenOffice on Suse Linux, and that Corel has announced an implementation for WordPerfect. http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/05/odf_vs_openxml .html <http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/2007/05/odf_vs_openxm l.html> Grant Hogarth Senior Technical Writer Equis International - A Reuters Company +1 801 270 3180 (t) | +1 801 815 8353 (m) | +1 801 265 3999 (f) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reuters Messaging: [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL: www.equis.com <http://www.equis.com/> TZ: Mountain (GMT +7) Reuters news and information reaches one billion people every day. Get the latest news at Reuters.com <http://www.reuters.com/> _______________________________________________ You are currently subscribed to Framers as [EMAIL PROTECTED] Send list messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
