Microsoft Corp. announced that it is adopting XML technology for the default file formats in the next version of Microsoft Office editions, currently code-named “Office 12.” The new file formats, called Microsoft Office Open XML Formats, will become the defaults for the “Office 12” versions of Microsoft Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint, which are expected to be released in the second half of 2006. The interoperability capabilities of the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats enable Microsoft Office applications to directly access data stored in systems outside those applications, such as server-based line-of-business applications. These third-party applications, in turn, can access data stored in the new Office file formats. Microsoft Office Open XML Formats are fully documented file formats with a royalty-free license. Anyone can integrate them directly into their servers, applications and business processes, without financial consideration to Microsoft. People using Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003 will be able to open, edit and save files using the new formats, thanks to a free update available as a download from Microsoft that enables those older Office versions to work with the new formats. Documents created with the current binary file formats in Office also will be fully compatible with “Office 12” applications. So workers can save documents to their current formats and exchange those documents with people using “Office 12” — and when they upgrade to “Office 12,” they can continue to use their existing binary documents. Microsoft will provide further technical information about the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats, including draft versions of the schemas, to help ensure that developers and IT professionals can be prepared to take advantage of the formats before product shipment. People interested in the new file formats and the next version of Office can get additional information beginning Monday, June 6 at a preview site, http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview
Category: Web technologies & information standards (Page 44 of 58)
Here we include topics related to information exchange standards, markup languages, supporting technologies, and industry applications.
I have commented before on research done by vendors. Such research is not independent of course, but sometimes you look at the results, and some of it makes perfect sense. Take this chart from a presentation by Jonathan Bruce, XQuery Evangelist for DataDirect Technologies. Jonathan was the featured speaker at a recent meeting of The Washington Area SGML / XML Users Group.
If you are interested in XQuery, I would recommend downloading the whole presentation.
Passing this along from Don Day, Chair of the OASIS DITA Techical Committee:
The OASIS DITA Technical Committee seeks your input on the list of known requirements/enhancements for upcoming DITA TC activity. Your help in ranking this list (or suggesting additional new requirements) will help the TC prioritize the most urgent issues for upcoming DITA 1.1 design work, and beyond. I have posted a list osf the issues currently known to the TC at this location: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/document.php?document_id=12814&wg_abbrev=dita
Please assess what you consider to be your top 5 requirements and submit those Issue numbers to the DITA TC via the comment form:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/form.php?wg_abbrev=dita .
If you have a new issue or requirement not included in this list, please enter it as a separate comment via the comment form. We still need your “top 5” from this list, so read it carefully–most of the known hot issues are in there in one way or another, possibly including yours. There is no need to include more than 5 items in your list at this time; all of the 48 items are candidates for work, but we need to know which are MOST critical for initial work going into DITA 1.1.
This review period opens on May 23 2005 and closes end of day on June 6 2005 (2 weeks).
It is excellent news that OASIS has approved OpenDocument as a standard. Hopefully it will also become an ISO standard. However, neither of these mean that it is necessarily the right approach for you. A single schema, no matter how well-designed, will not work for everyone. James Governor is quoted in the release: “One key to success will be the royalty free status of the spec; there are no financial penalties associated with developing to it.” Very true, but Microsoft’s schema is also royalty and cost free, and I believe they have committed (contractually even I think…?) e.g., to the EU, to keep it that way. See more on this here and here.
OASIS announced that its members have approved the Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) v1.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. OpenDocument provides a royalty-free, XML-based file format that covers features required by text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents. OpenDocument provides a single XML schema for text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents. It makes use of existing standards, such as HTML, SVG, XSL, SMIL, XLink, XForms, MathML, and the Dublin Core, wherever possible. OpenDocument has been designed as a package concept, enabling it to be used as a default file format for office applications with no increase in file size or loss of data integrity. Future plans for the OASIS OpenDocument Technical Committee include extending the standard to encompass additional areas of applications and users, as well as adapting it to incorporate ongoing developments in office applications. All those interested in advancing this work, including governments, open source initiatives, educational institutions, and software providers, are encouraged to participate in the Committee. OASIS hosts an open mail list for public comment and the opendocument-dev mailing list for exchanging information on implementing the standard. http://www.oasis-open.org
A complimentary breakfast seminar and discussion:
“Technology Directions: Driving DITA Adoption in Europe”, has been added to next week’s conference in Amsterdam on Friday, May 27, 8 – 10:00 a.m. IBM, Idiom and Nokia will present on DITA and its practical applications, while leading an open discussion focused specifically on the adoption of DITA-based publishing initiatives in Europe through establishing regular meetings, networking opportunities and education events. Panelists from Thursday’s presentation will be on hand, with the addition of Indi Leipa, senior information architect, Nokia.
Mark Birbeck’s company, x-port.net Ltd., makers of formsPlayer, have launched an XForms Wiki, and they have some seeded it with some good material. Some of the initial content includes tutorials, industry news, reference material, and sample applications.
Yesterday the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued its
response to concerns that Sarbanes Oxley Section 404 requirements were onerous,
unwieldy, and just too expensive. The PCAOB published a policy
statement that affirmed the goals and requirements in the regulations
implementing Section 404, which requires that public companies have effective
internal controls over financial reporting and requires that an independent
auditor provides an opinion regarding the effectiveness of these controls. No
surprise there.
What was more interesting and important was that the PCAOB did acknowledge
that many first year audit efforts were inefficient and too expensive. The
important parts of the statement called for a top-down, rather than bottom-up,
approach to internal control assessment. The PCAOB also made important
clarifications about the kinds of interactions between auditors and the
companies that they audit that are permissible and useful.
Understanding this business about "top-down" and
"bottom-up" is easier if you put it in the context of how auditing
practice has developed over time. Without that big picture perspective, Section
404 and the PCAOB statements sound like a lot of accounting jargon. But, given
the perspective, it is easier to see that we are talking about some fundamental
changes–and about expense and confusion emerging from not getting the changes
right during this past year.
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