Microsoft announced today that the Office Open XML document formats for Word, Excel and Powerpoint will eb submitted to the ECMA International organization for approval as an open standard. A number of companies agreed to work with Microsft in a technical committee to create the ECMA standard, including Apple, Barclays, BP, teh British Library, Essilor, Intel, NextPage, StatOil and Toshiba.
It's good to see this happening. The pressure from the State of Massachusetts has received a lot of publicity, and there has been some unnecessarily abrasive writing on the subject.
The real value is an access standard that can evolve as documents gain more capability. The headline aside (Microsoft to Give Office Access to Rivals) the Financial Times pointed out:
The [European] Commission is eager to promote e-government services, but is concerned about access to public documents created in proprietary formats such as Microsoft Office. It is keen to ensure that all EU citizens are able to access electronic government documents without being obliged to buy a specific company’s software.
Comments