What Microsoft Lacks is a Universal Document Format?
Some more controversy over a universal document format comes Microsoft’s way (and thankfully not mine 
). Considering the amount of discussions and confusion over my earlier post, I can totally understand the kind of problems Microsoft is going through trying to unify their document formats. However, this time, the battle is between Microsoft and Adobe. Microsoft would want to provide the PDF format as an output option for its Office documents, but Adobe seems unimpressed.
As the author, Doug Henschen, himself states Microsoft wont acheive much by providing Adobe’s PDF format as an output option into the Office 2007 suite. Its doesnt help Microsoft in any way, and Adobe gets to boast a lot. But one things for sure, it will change offices in a big way. No more XLS and DOC and PPTs. Only PDFs. How does that sound? Refreshing for a change. But thats not the final word. It also takes away choice and interoperability from the users. True choice lies in the user being able to use the format he wants to based on his needs. So what are the user’s real options?
The most important and globally recognized unified document format comes from Sun. Called the ODF or Open Document Format, it was given recognition as an international standard in May 2006 by ISO (International Standards Organisation). And since then it hasnt looked back. It forms a core part of Sun’s OpenOffice Suite and now Google plans to use it as the official document format for its own Office Suite. How long that takes still remains to be seen.
Last I heard, Microsoft was coming out with its own unified document format (called OpenXML) based on a ZIP (as in WinZip) archive of XML files.Whatever happened to it? What makes it even worse for Microsoft is that Google is strongly behind Sun’s ODF (Open Document Format). As this article explains, Google has a lot to gain from ODF, as does everyone. To quote:
“And this is how ODF will become the default file format for Office 2010 or 2012. It’s not whether or not you’re using Word that matters to Google. It will be whether or not you’re using ODF as a file format. The first step in taking away dependence on an application (or suite of applications) is to take away the things that make it proprietary.”
The debate continues…and I wait…
1 Comment so far
Leave a comment
<snip>
… I can totally understand the kind of problems Microsoft is going through trying to unify their document formats….
</snip>
I think you misunderstood, ms is talking about unifying “office document” formats, that is single document for a particular “kind/class” of files, and what you were talking about was having one single format for all possible files. So, IMHO, the two are different.
<snip>
As the author, Doug Henschen, himself states Microsoft wont acheive much by providing Adobe’s PDF format as an output option into the Office 2007 suite. Its doesnt help Microsoft in any way, and Adobe gets to boast a lot.
</snip>
Umm.. if i read that article correctly, then the author says the exact opposite. Lemme quote him :
<quote>
The format is the foundation of Adobe’s “Intelligent Documents” product segment, which this year will account for more than one third ($700 million) of the company’s nearly $2 billion in revenue.
…………
To be sure, giving millions of users the ability to turn Office documents into PDFs will knock a lot of wind out of the sails/sales of Adobe and plenty of other vendors. But it still won’t give Microsoft a universal format and universal content creation tool of its own.
</quote>
I think the above clearly shows (and its logical) that adobe won’t exactly get to ‘boast’ anything. For MS, they would be fulfilling a much desired ‘feature’ in MS Office, so then its not a loss for them, just not a very big win
<snip>
No more XLS and DOC and PPTs. Only PDFs. How does that sound?
</snip>
Huh? Who said no xls/doc/ppts?? The option of a pdf output is just that, an option! It won’t replace any of the existing document formats. For that, you would have either the ODF or microsoft’s own format, but not PDF!
<snip>
It also takes away choice and interoperability from the users. True choice lies in the user being able to use the format he wants to based on his needs.
</snip>
Umm, aren’t you contradicting your “one format fits all” funda that you were talking about in your earlier post?
<snip>
Microsoft was coming out with its own unified document format (called OpenXML) based on a ZIP (as in WinZip) archive of XML files.
</snip>
AFAIK, the ZIP file based format is not something that MS is coming out with, its the same style followed by the older StarOffice document files and the ODF. Try renaming any ODF file to a .zip and you will be able to open it and see the various xml files, objects (eg.images) that it contains.
By Ankit on 06.28.06 9:59 pm
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>