Login:
Password:
Lost Password?
Print this article  |  E-mail this article  |  Comment on this article

Now a British educational agency raises alarms on OXML

By Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews

May 14, 2008, 6:33 PM

A British watchdog agency has filed a complaint with the European Commission charging that Open XML -- on its way to standardization -- fails to do its stated job of supporting interoperability with software from other developers.

The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), a non-profit organization, wants the EC to find out whether, in obtaining standards approval for OXML, Microsoft might have intentionally withheld information from its competitors. This just weeks after the ISO's approval of OXML as international standard ISO/IEC 29500.

BECTA also contends that -- because of interoperability problems with the ISO-approved Open Document Format (ODF) -- the British educational system is paying more for software than it should.

In 2005, the same group published a study showing that British primary schools could save up to 50 percent of their software costs by choosing open source applications over "proprietary" ones.

In a related piece of its complaint to the EC, BECTA charges that Microsoft is displaying "anti-competitive practices" by requiring all computers on a school campus to carry Microsoft licenses, if any of the computers use such licenses.

"Microsoft is deeply committed to education and interoperability," responded a Microsoft spokesperson in a written statement, adding that Microsoft has started to create tools that will allow Microsoft Office to work better with ODF files.

The spokesperson also said that Microsoft will cooperate with both BECTA and the EC around document interoperability.

Add a Comment (22 Comments)

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Name (required):

E-mail (required):

Enter Your Comment:

By mozzy_m

edited May 16, 2008 - 8:58 AM

After reading the article and most of the comments I can only say I'm very much shocked. As for the claim that Microsoft has intentionally withheld information on OXML... WTF?! The standard is out... right? So if Microsoft wishes to have some extra "features" or whatever in OXML then shall they do it... but they can't call out that they're using the standard. As for OO and OXML... why the hell should Microsoft be spoken respobsible for the developers of OO not being able to write a decent software?

It is really weird, many people shout out that Microsoft has too much power and is abusing it but hell... it seems that those who are fighting against many of Microsoft's methods are actully playing directly in MS's hands.
It is an ISO standard. Go with it or leave it.

Also if people want to use ODF and if Office doesn't support it... again, why being angry at MS? I develop a software; it has certain features. If you don't like it leave it. Not my problem if the alternatives just aren't quite what you're looking for. Hire another developer to build you a plug-in for ODF support.

Seriously people, stop blaming start working yourself.

Score: 0

By tscar13

edited May 15, 2008 - 10:39 AM

I will make a few observations and people are welcome to disagree:
1) I do think that MS made a mistake in both Vista and Office 2007 in offering to many versions. They should of kept it simple and had a home version and business version of both and that's it. I think that because of the way they did it, people bought more than they really needed and didn't have the power in their computer to take full advantage of it.
2) I also think MS made a mistake in Office by not automatically including, in all version, Outlook.
3) With Office documents you have a choice in how to save the file and that choice goes beyond the "default" saving format of .doc so interoperability is there but people need to know which format to choose and, just like installing a program, don't choose the default.
4) Finally, I will make a point I made on another post that quickly went into the netherworld of Betanews and that is that I am not sure standardizatilon is a good idea in that it might stifle innovation. Given how hard it it to get something passed In the U.S. of any substance, just imnagine how difficult it will be for an International agency if a new formmat (and one will come along to change the dynamics) to approve. So I favor or rather demand that all documents have the ability to "talk" with one another but not necessarily one size fits all standardization.

Everyone have a nice day:)

Score: 0

By Ramhound

posted May 15, 2008 - 7:02 AM

So an agency wants who to do what because they think they are paying to much for brand new software?

Office 2007 is premium software priced at a level where people buy copies. The market supports this fact because the current version of Office is being sold to people.

If the price was to much then the market would not support it and Microsoft would lower the price.

So what does this bloody agency want the EU to force Microsoft to do this time, make less money on Office?

I think this British Agency should go back to College, Microsoft can sell its product for whatever price it wants. If they think its to much then they should use a different product.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted May 15, 2008 - 8:38 AM

Not exactly. People buy office because their data is attached to file format: ".doc" can be read by Microsoft Office and they feel they have little choice. I'm not going to argue over the features benefits of Office 07 over others, but I bet there is a large majority of people on the planet that mindlessly buy office 07 just as they buy Vista simply because they have no idea that there are alternatives that may free them from a continually taxed cycle just to access their data. So be it, I have no doubt the majority of the planet are sheep.

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted May 15, 2008 - 8:29 AM

"A British watchdog agency has filed a complaint with the European Commission charging that Open XML -- on its way to standardization -- fails to do its stated job of supporting interoperability with software from other developers."

Read that paragraph. Then read it again. And maybe one more time.

They aren't saying that they should lower the prices or anything like what you are saying.

They want OXML to be able to be supported in other softwares (such as Open Office). Currently it would seem this is very hard or impossible.

"BECTA also contends that -- because of interoperability problems with the ISO-approved Open Document Format (ODF) -- the British educational system is paying more for software than it should."

I'm not entirely sure that this paragraph actually means they're having a go at Microsoft, or whether it's about the software purchasers in educational systems for not 'purchasing' free and open standards.

The main aim here is to get Microsoft to actually and fully open up the ways of constructing tools to save documents in OXML format.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited May 15, 2008 - 9:20 AM

They want OXML to be able to be supported in other softwares (such as Open Office). Currently it would seem this is very hard or impossible.

FFSs, OpenOffice already supports OXML. Clicky

...or clicky...

...or http://go-oo.org (apparently too many links? Can't link that site for some reason)

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted May 15, 2008 - 11:22 AM

Can you tell I don't use OO?

Ok then, I'll change my statement to 'supported correctly'. I doubt it renders perfectly if you open a Microsoft Office produced OXML document in OO.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 15, 2008 - 12:00 PM

Heh...

How about,

"I don't use it, so I can't really comment on how well it works without looking like I'm making it up as I go along."?

Just a thought. :p

Score: 0

By fatty

posted May 15, 2008 - 10:01 AM

How well do those plug-ins support OXML? Does a document in MS Office look the same as a document in Open Office?

If I was in BECTA i would want it the other way around...MS Office should support ODF and allow a user to set ODF as the native format.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 15, 2008 - 12:04 PM

Take a look at that first link. Ignore the comments from the trolls like Zaine, it says it supports opening and saving in .docx format.

I don't use OO.o, so I cannot verify how *well* it works. I know it's from Novell, and I know they made it for their version. I would guess that it works pretty well or they would not have released it.

Score: 0

By Grazer

posted May 15, 2008 - 2:17 PM

For that matter, why should the quality of other developers' products be Microsoft's responsibility?

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 15, 2008 - 3:51 PM

...especially considering the standard in question is no longer "theirs"...

Score: 0

By Paul Skinner

posted May 15, 2008 - 2:56 AM

"In a related piece of its complaint to the EC, BECTA charges that Microsoft is displaying "anti-competitive practices" by requiring all computers on a school campus to carry Microsoft licenses, if any of the computers use such licenses."

That's the one that always shocked me. That actually includes Macs and Linux boxes.

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted May 15, 2008 - 5:46 AM

Its the license that made M$ in the first place all those years ago to pay a royalty whether Windows was on a system or not when they were manufactured......

Score: 0

By methuselah

posted May 14, 2008 - 10:25 PM

"Microsoft is deeply committed to education and interoperability...has started to create tools that will allow Microsoft Office to work better with ODF files..."

See, MS is STARTING to create tools to be interoperable with the one open document format standard approved a while back...before they came up with their own that sounds confusingly like it, but isn't interoperable with it.
And they are even starting this nice work before the non-interoperable "standard" they are pushing is made an "open" standard. The press is really misrepresenting this one, here nice Microsoft is going to be playing fairly, at some point in the future, and some don't just trust them. It's not as if they just released a new version of their software that intentionally can't read and write the approved standard, is it? It's not as if they are a company convicted for abusing their monopoly, is it? It's not as if they intentionally made things not to be interoperable in the past, is it? No, what's the big deal?

Score: 0

By lvthunder

posted May 14, 2008 - 8:00 PM

You know what. I'm getting sick of all these EU people saying Microsoft is doing this Microsoft is doing that and going to cry to mama. If you don't like what they are doing just use something else. I don't see Bill Gates holding a gun to anyone's head saying use Office or else. I don't know how much more open Microsoft's new format can be. You can use winzip and unzip the file and read the contents with any text editor.

Score: 0

By CadErik

posted May 14, 2008 - 9:46 PM

Just a reminder, much of the controversy with interoperability started when some states did require the document format to be standard... much before the EU...
Also if all that everybody did require from a standard is to open it in a text editor, life would be rather easy.

Score: 0

By lvthunder

posted May 14, 2008 - 10:00 PM

What I was saying was that it can't be too hard to reverse engineer if everything is in plain text. Plus it's not like this is the only format you can save in. If you want it to be read by everyone either make a PDF or RTF file.

Score: 0

By sjc001

edited May 15, 2008 - 5:51 AM

If you don't have bread you can always eat cake instead.... [rolleyes] M$' idea of standardization is that everyone use their stuff ONLY.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted May 15, 2008 - 9:11 AM

...and the ODF folks want you to use other formats?

[rolleyes] indeed.

Or were you mistakenly trying to imply that Office was the only suite that supported OXML?

We're all shocked. Really.

Try:

iPhone
iWork
OpenOffice
Palm OS
NeoOffice

Just for starters.

Score: 0

By Alpha258

posted May 15, 2008 - 1:52 PM

Just to point out...

iPhone and iWork both Apple = same.
NeoOffice is a lightly modified OpenOffice so its the same.

So its more like:

iWork
OpenOffice
Palm OS

I hate people that exaggerate.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited May 15, 2008 - 2:10 PM

lmao...

iPhone does not use the iWork suite. IWork does not use iPhone software.

Get a grip.

OpenOffice and NeoOffice are arguably the same, but are still separate applications available to anyone with many folks preferring one over the other, equating to two separate choices.

So no, it is as I posted it. You just want to argue semantics.

I am amused by people that purposefully miss the point just to argue semantics.

Score: 0

Jul 3 - 6:45 PM ET Netflix box by Roku to get more content providers

Jul 3 - 6:30 PM ET US Justice Dept. sued for info on cellular tracking practices

Jul 3 - 6:27 PM ET Next Patch Tuesday has few security updates, big Vista reliability fix

Jul 3 - 5:49 PM ET BlackBerry Pearl users can test voice input for Google Maps

Jul 3 - 5:30 PM ET Adobe pushes its Flash 10 beta 2 refresh

Jul 3 - 4:39 PM ET Nokia and InterDigital start to disassemble their running feud

Jul 3 - 4:34 PM ET Do-it-yourself phone manufacturer declares its independence tomorrow

Jul 3 - 4:16 PM ET Study: US broadband access up overall, but down among the poor

Jul 3 - 3:54 PM ET Beta test a portable Web browsing device

Jul 3 - 3:20 PM ET Nvidia: 'Previous generation' GPUs failing at high rates