Looks interesting.
Forwarded Message
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Sun Announces ODF - Office Converter
Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 12:33:14 -0500
A few minutes ago, Sun announced the imminent release of its Office - ODF
plug in. Like the converter released three days ago by the
Microsoft-sponsored SourceForge project, Sun's converter will initially
work only with Word documents (both development teams are working on
spreadsheet and presentation modules; Sun says that it's upgrade will be
available in April).
The existence of two plugins will bring a new dynamic into the competition
between OOXML and ODF based products. Sun has opted to provide a tool that
the vast amount of existing Office users can use (it will initially work
with Office 2003), while Microsoft has funded an open source-developed
plugin that will work with Office 2003, Office XP and the new Office 2007
version of its office suite. Existing Office users will therefore have an
array of choices: to stay with their existing version of Office and choose
whichever plugin they like best, or to upgrade to either Office 2007 or to
one of the many ODF-based proprietary and open source offerings. In any
such case, they will be able to manage documents that are generated in
either the ODF or the OOXML format.
In an ironic twist, training staff to convert from an existing version of
Office to an ODF-compliant product (such as OpenOffice or StarOffice) might
require less training (and related costs) than an upgrade to Office 2007,
due to the great deal of similarity between many ODF products and the
current version of Office, in contrast to the dramatic differences that
exist between Office 2007 and its predecessors.
Further details and the full text of the press release are here:
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070207083913371
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Andrew Updegrove
Gesmer Updegrove LLP
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