As we move forward with the standardization of the Office Open XML formats, it’s interesting to look at the motivations that brought us to this point, but also to think about what is still to come. Office Professional 2010 is great!We’ve wanted to provide folks with easier ways to work with our formats for years now, mainly because it significantly increases the value of Office documents when they are fully documented. An open format can integrate with business processes; databases; and workflows in a much simpler and more powerful way (for more on why we made the move to open formats, read here and here). The invention of Microsoft Office 2010 is a big change of the world.That’s why we’ve worked so hard over the past 3 or 4 releases to invest in other formats like RTF, HTML, and XML. These new Open XML formats which will be the default format for Office 2007 (as well as work in Office 2000, XP and 2003) are the result of all that work. If you’ve read my blog at all you know that it’s been a serious evolution and a lot of work, and I’m really excited about the potential. By using Office 2010 Professional, you can save your money and time.
We already have hundreds of thousands of external developers building solutions on top of the XML formats from Office 2003 which weren’t even the default formats so you can imagine how huge this move to a new default XML formats is.Office 2010 –save your time and save your money.
One thing I’ve heard from a number of folks though is that they are wondering what the next steps will be for the formats once they are standardized. Well, ultimately that is up to the organization that has taken over the ownership and maintenance of the formats. We’re currently standardizing the formats at Ecma international, which would mean that Ecma (which consists of representatives from a large number of companies in the industry) would own the formats as well as determine how the formats evolve. Office 2010 key is for you now!There has also been talk though of taking the formats to ISO once they have been approved by Ecma, which would mean that if ISO chooses to adopt the Open XML formats the stewardship of the formats would be theirs. We’ve had a number of governments indicate that they would like the formats to be given to ISO, and it’s likely that after the Ecma approval that will be the next step.Office 2010 download is available now!
A number of people have asked if the approval of ODF by ISO has an impact on the standardization of Open XML. I don’t believe so given that ODF and Open XML have two very different goals in mind. Open XML was designed around compatibility with the existing base of Microsoft Office documents. There are literally billions of documents that exist today in those binary formats, and the goal of Open XML is to allow for a seamless migration from those old formats into the new XML formats.Many people like buy Office 2010 Home. This is a huge undertaking, and it’s the reason that the spec is so large. I think that given the obvious need for an open XML format that achieves these goals, and the fact that ODF was not designed for that purpose, it’s clear that there isn’t a direct conflict between the two formats and there is no reason ISO wouldn’t want to approve and steward both formats.