Responding to government requests for interoperability, Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it will offer free software that will allow Word, Excel and PowerPoint to handle documents in rival technology formats.
The translation tools will be developed and licensed as open source software, and will be offered as downloadable add-ins for several older versions of the Microsoft Office system, the Redmond, Washington-based company said.
Microsoft also said the translation tools will be broadly available to the industry to accelerate document interoperability and expand customer choice between Open XML and other technologies.
Saying all that — and using the magic words “open source” — you still have to wonder if and when Microsoft will actually support these translation tools. Which is meaningful to the corporate IT dudes.
The fact that they are doing is proves they are worried. Worried about the open source movement. 5 years ago, M$ would have just laughed it off and continue to collect their tribute from their subjects, I mean customers.
gq, I don’t know if M$ is worried or just seeing the times, they are a changing. I’m sure they are also looking over their shoulders at another possible anti trust suit, this time in M$ Office. You are right about laughing it off five years ago though.
They will screw this up worse than their Ipod killer but it won’t cost them as much.
Ok,
they have done this before, and it was cool, but Flawed.
Then they Bought out most of the companies, and Went their OWN way again…
For the Price they are charging for OFFICE, BASIC….SUCK.
Nice graphic word processor and Excell basic, and $50…would be nice.
but it wont happen.
Why would anyone buy MS Office to use Open Document files?
Why not use the free Open Office which uses those files natively?
#5, I use OO at home while my wife is keeping her M$ Office at both home and work. She often asks me to create some form or do other work and several times I have sent her documents for her to fax from her office (we don’t have a fax machine at home). Although not always, there have been some formatting issues going from one to the other. Especially when going from OO to Office. Many businesses insist you send documents in Office formats only.
Another point I suggested earlier, Europe is insisting M$ open up the Windows code to other companies. For whatever reasons, the EU is seriously considering fining M$ $500 million for non compliance. I think M$ will head off another episode like that by opening the door first while not necessarily giving up the source code.
Wow, where can I get a wall paper sized version of that graphic. Thats hilarious. =)
I’m no fan of Microsoft’s business practices or corporate culture, but I will say that they put out some good products. (Each of which has it’s own problems, of course.) I’m sure the majority never uses the most advanced features of the Office suite, but I do, and there is an amazing amount of power in being able to tie together spreadsheets, databases, web pages, etc. using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Word, Excel, Access, and so on may appear to be separate applications, but they’re not. There really isn’t anything else out there, open-source or otherwise, that comes within an order of magnitude of them as a whole.
Anyway, I wouldn’t see their nod to interoperability with open document formats as anything TOO positive… I’m sure their goal is the same as always when approaching competition: embrace, extend, exterminate. It’s been a very effective strategy.
#8 you are right, Office is powerfull. More powerfull then most busnesses need for the price M$ demands of it. I think most could be well suited with OO if they could break themselves of the M$ monoculture.