Microsoft adding XML files to Office 12

Microsoft said Thursday that it will introduce new XML-based file formats for its Excel, PowerPoint and Word applications when the company launches its Office 12 software package next year.

Company officials said the move to replace Microsoft's traditional binary file formats with XML-based versions as the default in Office 12 will let people more easily share information.

Microsoft pledged that the shift to XML, or Extensible Markup Language, will decrease the size of many individual files and make documents created in its Office products more resistant to corruption.

While Microsoft's Excel and Word programs already offer some XML compatibility, the new formats will bring those applications, and PowerPoint, into a "full fidelity" version of the standard, said Takeshi Numoto, senior director for the Microsoft Office System.

The biggest advantage of the new formats, Numoto said, will be their capacity to allow workers to access data from various documents without opening individual files, and to allow workers to use that information in new ways.

"You can dream of many scenarios to integrate documents with multiple back-end data sources and line-of-business sources," Numoto said. "You could have Excel connected to sales data on a back-end system. This is a situation where the line between content and data becomes blurred."

The biggest advantage of the new formats will be their capacity to allow workers to access data from various documents without opening individual files.

The company said the new files will be compatible with its existing documents, and promised that it will distribute a free downloadable "converter" that allows users of Office 2000 and later versions of its so-called productivity software to work with the new formats. Customers will have the option to not use the new files in Office 12, but the XML formats will be set as defaults in the three applications when the package ships, sometime in the second half of 2006.

In addition, when a person using one of the new Office formats opens and edits a document created in the old system, the file will be saved in the format in which it was originally created in an effort to simplify compatibility. The file extension names for the new formats will add a letter "x" to Microsoft's existing naming conventions, such that a document created in Word will have the suffix ".docx" added to its title.

The announcement marks the latest effort by Microsoft to adopt XML throughout its business software lines, an initiative that has been maturing since the company first said it would license the XML-based file formats used in its Office 2003 release. More recently, the firm announced that it had committed in perpetuity to offering a royalty-free license of Office-related XML document formats.

Microsoft has also pledged to provide appropriate documentation for and encourage the creation of "filters" by other software makers that would allow other applications to read Microsoft's existing word-processor XML format. Rival Sun Microsystems said last year that it would create document filters for its OpenOffice open-source desktop suite.

"Open file format continues our policy of providing our XML schemas in an open, royalty-free license," said Microsoft's Numoto. "That's an important element of facilitating partners and developers to use that schema to integrate the format into their solutions."

Numoto said that by allowing documents to be

The Question Is!

Why it took Microsoft this long to realize that the most positive way forward for the global software industry was the adoption of open-standards-XML-based file formats for its Excel, PowerPoint and Word applications that will more easily access data across XML's various applications such as OpenOffice Open-Source Desktop Suite, Lotus SmartSuite and PerfectOffice among others!

Well

Microsoft has some XML support in office 2003. But I BET that Microsoft can screw up the XML standard so that it's not standards compliant like they did with Java. Oh wait they already did that with MSXML :P .

[Eggs Ackley]

The Standard

Anything less than the OpenDocument standard for all office documents, is just more of the same form Microsoft.

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office

From Downtown "Bhagdad" To Downtown "Redmond"!

Eggs: Within the context of the myths of the O K Coral "duel" which might still be etched in our memories as well as those of the "Vietnam" era perhaps the subject line "The Standard" and sub-heading "OpenDoc in Warp 4.0" from "This One's A Winner":

http://www.os2ezine.com/v1n13/opendoc.htm

could have been appropriately titled "From Downtown "Bhagdad" To Downtown "Redmond".

Efforts such as those by OASIS ;-) towards "Enabling software providers to create infrastructure and applications which interoperate with and adhere to the ebXML specifications" must certainly be the "hallmarks" of companies working in close collaboration with standards institutions in today's world. Bring "em" On. Regards!

;-)

MS Office XML example

Microsoft can use XML as a document format, but that doesn't
necessarily mean it will be portable. E.g., they could still embed
the contents of your document in their own proprietary
gobbledeygook:

<WordDocument>
<title>Spiffy Document</title>
<contents encoding="MS Proprietary v.988.2">
FJIWFJWEI GOBBLEDEygOOkjj fejwfwj3327432
8e8 3jjjjjeweh hewuehfu
</contents>
</WordDocument>

[Rick S.]

A Better example

Your example is pretty good, but lacks the Binary Objects which are so prevalent in the current "XML" Documents (look at the FunkyBLOBThingy):

<WordDocument>
<title>Spiffy Document</title>
<contents encoding="MS Proprietary v.988.2">
<AsciiThingy1>
FJIWFJWEI GOBBLEDEygOOkjj fejwfwj3327432
<FunkyBLOBThingy>
038A67CC49DFF082275644B0FC
</FunkyBLOBThingy>
8e8 3jjjjjeweh hewuehfu
</AsciiThingy1>
</contents>
</WordDocument>

No documentation of the byte and bit contents, Who knows what length it might have or what it might do... but it's 100% XML!

[Earl Benser]

MS is once more playing games?????

If the move to XML actually improves file interoperability, then
it's a good idea. But MS has a history of using 'innovation' as a
means to exclude any competition. If this is just another of MS's
under-the-table tricks, then MS needs a major set of lumps, and
fast.

And when the smoke clears, how about a 'Word-Lite' and 'Excel-
Lite' to provide the basic desired functions without all the
superfluous features which now complicate operations???? And it
would be even better if Word and Excel had user-selectable
subroutines so that each user could define his own version of
'Lite'.

But I guess that this would be well beyond MS;s capabilities ---
or interests.

Taking The Battle To Redmond!

With regards to Excel's obvious current limitations... How well does Redmond understand and appreciate the requirements (e.g. http://www.adb.org/Documents/Guidelines/Eco_Analysis/discount_rate.asp) for the "conversion" of Internal Rate of Return (IRR) Values to Economic Rate of Return (ERR) Values during international project considerations? and, how about real-time updates!

Captain "Warp" To Bridge - Three To Beam Up!

;-)

While We Are On The Same Page!

Here is additional selected text for reading:

http://www.adb.org/Documents/Guidelines/Eco_Analysis/rationale.asp

;-)

[Earl Benser]

I wouldn't expect Excel to do accounting...

... It's just a spreadsheet, with a lot of options, but not all
options for every user. Excel really sucks when it comes to
physics and chemistry formulas, but no physicist or chemist
would expect otherwise.

So an accountant should be able to create the functions he
needs, as he needs them. And the aaccounting function
conversions are also the job the the accountant.

[Rick S.]

The OTHER Question is...

What exactly will be the terms of the MS license?

I expect MS to offer yet another so-called "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" license. Almost all such licenses of the past have been HUGELY discriminatory, because they have been offered only to CORPORATIONS!

It's probably just another "Embrace with Nice-Sounding Speeches, for the purpose of Misleading People" about the Real Capabilities AND LIMITATIONS which MS will impose on Interoperability.

This could be like their "100% standard Kerberos, inter-operating with UNIX systems". (Well, yes, it meets the standard, but you've got to keep your Windoze machines under AD, and all of the UNIX Apps have to be defined under AD, so you're WHOLE NETWORK is now OWNED by Active Directory due to Microsoft's proprietary and undocumented Kerberos extensions.)

Office is one of two Cash Cows. If you "think" that MS is going to do anything which makes it easier for you to get away from their Monopoly, you're VERY confused. You're only dreaming, and this one WON'T come true.

[Rick S.]

And the 3rd Question is...

If they've been working so hard on these "Open" Office XML Formats, why didn't they just contribute to OASIS (and use it)?

[bugmenot]

Can Microsoft even deny permission to use the format?

"License the Schema", "Give permission for others to use the format". Do Microsoft even have the right to deny that permission? Aren't patents or any other ownership of file formats still a bit controversial, even in patent mad America? Isn't there a lot of history of file format reverse engineering being perfectly legal even without permission from the creator?

We must be careful that the right to reverse engineer formats isn't lost as people become used to the idea of formats being protected.