Count me a skeptic. The article is thin on detail.
If I were to guess, I'd say they are following their old vaporware
strategy: announce early to hobble the mindshare growth of a
competitor, and then never deliver. The article states it will be at
least 18 months before this is released! And, who is ECMA anyway?
"Microsoft will submit its Office file formats to Ecma International,
the standards body, which will develop the documentation and make it
available to the industry. The move is being supported by a number of
organisations including Apple Computer, Barclays Capital, BP, Intel and
Toshiba.
Within about 18 months, customers, competitors and developers should be
able to download detailed files from Ecma on how to create a Microsoft
Word, Powerpoint or Excel document."
On Nov 21, 2005, at 3:33 PM, John McCreesh wrote:
The FT has broken the embargo:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/e9f5c0f8-5ab7-11da-8628-0000779e2340.html
John
On Mon, 2005-11-21 at 18:47 +0000, John McCreesh wrote:
Just heard a rumour from a journalist reading an embargoed press
release
that Microsoft will announce an XML file format for Office which they
will submit to ISO as an open-standard. The journalist claimed it
would
be announced at midnight CET.
The monopolist is on the defensive.
John
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
---------------------------------------
"The Tiny Guide to OpenOffice.org" now available!
http://www.solidoffice.com/tinyguide/
Free Culture and Open Source:
www.solidoffice.com
