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TheoCryst · Nov 22, 2005, 02:13 PM

http://www.macnn.com/articles/05/11/...opens.formats/

Apple is treading dangerous waters... the more popular OS X becomes, the more important it will be that it integrates seamlessly into the Windows world. As of right now, there is no program that perfectly emulates the proprietary .doc .xls and .ppt file formats used by MS Office, which is obviously the number one office suite worldwide. Ergo, Apple is incredibly dependent on MIcrosoft's continued development of and support for the Mac version of Office.

But what happens when the big boys over at MS start to see Apple as a major threat to their OS dominance? How willing are they going to be to support their primary competition (assuming it ever were to reach this point)? I'd say fairly slim. If MS were to kill Office on the Mac, there would no longer be any app that was fully compatable with the rest of the world (even OpenOffice.org on Windows hiccups now and then, creating alignment issues and the like).

Then, this happened. Suddenly the rest of the world has a chance to play in the same league as Microsoft as far as office suites go. This is Apple's chance (or a good third-party developer, whatever) to really push an alternative to MS Office that, believe it or not, creates files of the same exact format as the software behemoth's. The marketing, of course, would have to be amazing... people really do love their MS Office.

Now, has anyone seen the beta screens of Office 12 for Vista and XP? I personally can't stand the new layout... it reeks too much of the direction that Windows has been going recently: make the simplest tasks even simpler, while making everything else a pain in the ass to try and do. This would be the perfect time for Apple to introduce a real word processor (Pages just doesn't cut it, quite frankly) and say "Hey look, *insert fun name starting with the letter i* looks more like MS Word than MS Word does!"

Hey, if Apple was able to wean themselves from IE, why not this?

ghporter · Nov 22, 2005, 06:42 PM

The majority of Word users (as an example) will never use the most arcane and occult features supported by the ".doc" format, so OpenOffice's emulation will work perfectly well for them. With that said, moving to an xml-based format is a Good Thing for everyone, not in the least because an open format specification will get rid of all sorts of undocumented behavior (like when you apply one formatting option and find that another has somehow been undone-but only from SOME instances!). Open = Good.

I don't believe Apple needs to build an alternative that radically departs from the basic, or even advanced features of Word, but supporting open file standards immediately is also a Good Thing.

Charles Bouldin · Nov 22, 2005, 07:44 PM

"Suddenly the rest of the world has a chance to play in the same league as Microsoft as far as office suites go. This is Apple's chance (or a good third-party developer, whatever) to really push an alternative to MS Office that, believe it or not, creates files of the same exact format as the software behemoth's. The marketing, of course, would have to be amazing... people really do love their MS Office."

I don't know anyone who loves MS Office. The software is amongst the worst, most-bloated and most cursed at that I know of. Opening these formats is BIG news, much more important than lots of things we agonize over (PPC vs Intel, for example). MS cannot have come to this decision easily, but they have been forced into by the Commonwealth of Ma., the city of Bonn, etc. This is some of the BEST news to hit the computing world in years, perhaps since the debut of OSX. If Apple has a particle of sense, they will take this and run with it. Not being required to use MS Office would be the best possible news for millions of computer users.

kcmac · Nov 22, 2005, 08:57 PM

I will believe it when I see it. MS is up to something here and as the details eventually are released, it will be the same old same old. Bank on it.

chabig · Nov 22, 2005, 09:58 PM

Agreed. Microsoft is trying to put one over on the rest of us. They are under pressure to support the Open Document format. Now, they can say they don't have to because their own format is open. This stunt is intended to take the wind out of the sails of Open Document. But it remains to be seen whether they are indeed serious (I doubt it).

Chris

Charles Bouldin · Nov 22, 2005, 10:59 PM

Originally Posted by chabig

Agreed. Microsoft is trying to put one over on the rest of us. They are under pressure to support the Open Document format. Now, they can say they don't have to because their own format is open. This stunt is intended to take the wind out of the sails of Open Document. But it remains to be seen whether they are indeed serious (I doubt it).

Chris

I agree and I should have been more suspicious. MS has a long record of polluting standards. There is already an article on eweek that details some fo tricks in this. For one thing, they plan to reveal how to write the formats, but not to read them. I agree that MS will probably just pretend to open these formats, and will certainly do no more than they are absolutely forced to. I would so like to be rid of MS Office. However, today I tried some simple Word documents with: Abiword, Mariner Write, Mellel, and Papyrus. Not one of them can handle a document with (1) tables, (2) hyperlinks, (3) a graphics file in the text, and get it all correct. Sigh.

TheoCryst · Nov 23, 2005, 12:25 AM

Originally Posted by Charles Bouldin

I don't know anyone who loves MS Office. The software is amongst the worst, most-bloated and most cursed at that I know of.

Ah, it seems I misspoke. When I said that, I was implying that people in general are not comfortable with change, especially when it involves their darling computers. They don't particularly enjoy MS Office, but they are ok enough with it to not want to change.

Originally Posted by Charles Bouldin

Not one of them can handle a document with (1) tables, (2) hyperlinks, (3) a graphics file in the text, and get it all correct. Sigh.

My point exactly.

production_coordinator · Nov 23, 2005, 12:49 AM

Sure it will be open... but will it be decipherable? Microsoft has a lovely way of using their own "standards".

Mediaman_12 · Nov 23, 2005, 08:33 AM

It will be the same as other 'open' standards. E.g. Macromedia's SWF is an 'open' standard, but how many other programmes are as good at creating high quality interactive Flash applications/moves as macromedia's own authoring product.

pliny · Nov 23, 2005, 09:43 AM

MS will never open their file formats. They make billions by making their software incompatible with products not theirs. Take MS Publisher for instance. It inserts Windows specific code into web pages so that you buy MS server products to host them, in order for them to work. The Web is supposed to be an open standard. Yet they fry things with IE. Then they put out buggy bloated, insecure software, then try to sell you antivirus software to monitor and slow down that same insecure software.

F.u.k.. them, they are full of it.

ghporter · Nov 24, 2005, 08:56 PM

For doubters, look here at Microsoft's FAQ for their XML file formats. Note particularly the answer to the first question:

Q. What are the benefits of Office XML Formats?
A.

The new Office XML Formats introduce a number of benefits not only for developers and the solutions they build, but also for individual users and organizations of all sizes.

Integration of Business Information with Documents
Office XML Formats enable rapid creation of documents from disparate data sources, accelerating document assembly, data mining, and content reuse. Exchanging data between Microsoft Office applications and enterprise business systems is simplified—alter information inside a Microsoft Office document or create a document from scratch using standard tools and technologies; access to Microsoft Office applications is not required. Employees can improve productivity by publishing, searching, and reusing information more quickly and accurately in the environment they choose.

Open and Royalty-free Specification
Office XML Formats are based on industry standard XML and ZIP technologies, support full integration by any technology provider, and are available via a royalty-free license. Format specifications will be published and made available under the same royalty-free license that exists for the Microsoft Office 2003 Reference Schemas—openly offered and available for broad industry use.

Compact, Robust File Format
Smaller file sizes and improved recovery of corrupted documents enable Microsoft Office users to operate efficiently and confidently and reduces the risk of lost information. Office XML Formats use ZIP and compression technologies to store documents offering potential cost savings as it reduces the disk space required to store files and decreases the bandwidth needed to transport files by e-mail, over networks, and across the Web.

threestain · Nov 25, 2005, 08:34 AM

it will be interesting to see what effect this has on the move by councils etc to open office...

ghporter · Nov 25, 2005, 08:57 AM

If you're talking about the way a lot of governmental entities have been specifying open source software as their standard, I don't think it will affect them at all. MS Office will still cost $500US or so, while OpenOffice will still be 0$... Many of these "open source" decisions have really been "we don't want to spend so much money" decisions.