All eyes on Office as Open document format (ODF) gets the nod

Subject: All eyes on Office as ODF gets the nod
Date: Fri, 05 May 2006 08:12:07 +0700
From: david <david@ngowiki.net>
Reply-To: david@ngowiki.net
Organization: Oxfam-Québec
To: Vern Weitzel <vern.weitzel@undp.org>

Open document format (ODF) obtains formal approuval from ISO, before
openXML, the next format for Microsoft office

http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/03/78047_HNodfnod_1.html

Approval paves the way for office suites based on ODF to be more broadly
adopted, proponents said Wednesday

By Elizabeth Montalbano, IDG News Service

May 03, 2006
The International Organization for Standards (ISO) this week gave formal
approval to the Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF),
paving the way for office suites based on ODF to be more broadly
adopted, proponents said Wednesday.

The move comes as Microsoft's rival standard for its own Office
productivity suite, OpenXML, awaits the same approval by the ISO. The
ISO is an international consortium that works with the United Nations to
maintain and approve international technology standards.

ODF is a standard for office documents overseen by the Organization for
the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and
supported by Microsoft rivals IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., among
other companies. They want to see ODF adopted internationally as the
standard for office documents and software that creates and manages
these documents, such as Microsoft's popular Office suite and rivals
such as Sun's Star Office.

The ISO's approval of the standard means they may get their wish, said
Andrew Updegrove, an open-source advocate and attorney with Gesmer
Updegrove LLP in Boston.

"With adoption of ODF by ISO/IEC now assured, software that implements
the standard will now become more attractive to those European and other
government purchasers for whom global adoption by ISO/IEC [International
Engineering Consortium] is either desirable, or required," he said via
e-mail. "Offerings such as OpenOffice and KOffice therefore should
receive a boost in appeal and usage, as well as for-sale versions, such
as Sun's StarOffice and IBM's Internet-based offering."

The government of Massachusetts in the U.S. already has put in motion a
plan to migrate its documents to ODF from proprietary formats, a process
it hopes to implement beginning in January 2007.

The OpenDocument Format Alliance (ODF Alliance), a group of more than
150 companies, organizations and academic institutions aimed at
promoting the standard, also praised the ISO's approval of ODF. In an
interview Wednesday, Marino Marcich, executive director of the ODF
Alliance, called the move "a real shot in the arm."

"It improves the prospect for adoption of ODF in both the public and
private sectors, and really [adoption of] the applications that support
ODF," he said.

In Europe especially, government entities and IT administrators in
general favor software based on ISO-approved standards over other
technology, Marcich added.

ODF emerged from work being done in the OpenOffice.org open-source
project. This work was later submitted to OASIS, where more development
was done before it was accepted as an official OASIS standard in May
2005.

Now that ODF has been approved by the ISO, the final release of its
documentation is expected in August, Marcich said.

--
-----
David Tremblay
IT analyst // Oxfam-Québec Hanoi
16 Mai Hac De // Hanoi // Vietnam
Tel : 945-4375 #310 // Fax : 945-4294 // mob : 0912 474 995 Official
web : www.oxfam.qc.ca // blog : http://blog.ngowiki.net

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alternate email : david@ngowiki.net

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--
Vern Weitzel (Mr.) AVSL <vern@coombs.anu.edu.au>
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/forum.html
home address: apartment 504-505, block A4 Giang Vo,
Ba Dinh, Ha Noi [opposite Van Phuc Compound]
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