News (16)

Australia abstains on final OOXML vote

Standards Australia has maintained its "abstain" vote on Microsoft's attempt to attain international standard status for its Office Open XML file format. Read more »

OOXML result: Will it matter in Australia?

Microsoft's OOXML document format has accrued enough votes for recognition as an international standard, but one observer believes the change will make little difference to users in Australia. Read more »

ODF guerillas rally for document freedom

Twenty-two organisations across 60 countries are taking part in DocumentFreedomDay (DFD) to raise awareness about what happens when formats are no longer supported by proprietary software. Read more »

Debate rages about the security risks of OOXML

Contrary to claims by the US Department of Defense that Office Open XML might lead to increased security concerns, vendor lock-in and backwards compatibility issues, Microsoft claims that OOXML resolves exactly these issues. Read more »

Microsoft: Govts demanded OOXML standard

The Office Open XML (OOXML) document format exists purely because governments demanded it, according to Microsoft, which is hoping the format will become an international standard by the end of this month. Read more »

Microsoft's OOXML 'choice' argument squashed

Microsoft claims that Australia will benefit from "greater choice" if local standards bodies vote this week to accept the Office Open XML format as an ISO standard. Read more »

Report calls anti-OOXML crowd poseurs

Large organisations should consider adopting Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format, according to new research. Read more »

Open Source tool creates OOXML docs for the blind

Microsoft has helped develop an open source tool that translates Word files into a "talking" digital book format, which makes documents easily accessible by the 160 million people worldwide with impaired vision. Read more »

British remain tight-lipped on OOXML vote

The British Standards Institution has sent its response to the International Organization for Standardization on the subject of whether Microsoft Office Open XML should be certified with the ISO, but has refused to say whether it voted "yes", "no", or "abstain". Read more »

Future versions of OOXML safe: Microsoft

Microsoft has assured coders that its Open Specification Promise — a pledge it won't sue developers using OOXML — will apply to future versions of the document format. Read more »

More Australia, Ooxml News Results

Video (2)

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Microsoft denies OOXML has 'proprietary hooks'

As Australia and various other nations prepare to vote on whether Microsoft's Open Office XML becomes an ISO standard, the Redmond giant is attempting to downplay fears that OOXML adopters will be hooked into the company's technology. Read more »

Play!
Microsoft Office executive claims OOXML provides greater security than alternative document formats

Redmond-based group project manager of Microsoft Office, Gray Knowlton, told ZDNet Australia that OOXML provides higher levels of security. "One of the benefits we have with the OpenOffice XML formats is that we know when we read and write and document because we have an XML based representation of what's in that content -- we know what should and should not be there," he said. Read more »

Blog (4)

Resuming regular service

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- It wasn't all April fools this week. There were some important developments in the software world -- seriously. Read more »

Bracing for Applefest

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- It's that time of year again, Steve Jobs' reality distortion field is about to extend throughout the internet and consume your favourite tech news sites for days. To Apple fanboys it is more than Christmas -- to others it is WWDC and you cannot escape it . Read more »

A mixed bag of Microsoft announcements

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- While the rest of the world was anticipating, observing and then critiquing the latest iPod releases, Microsoft made some big announcements this week. The news for Microsoft fans is mixed at best. Read more »

All this matter and make up and déjá vu

Staff [blogs:syslog] -- There are some weeks when you could be mistaken for thinking that the record had skipped and the players involved were simply going through the motions -- this week was one of them. Read more »

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  • Staff Crying, mooning and leaving

    In this week's roundup we see that continuous whining can get results, Linux users get 64-bit Flash and Moonlight previews, the latest in the Yahoo/Microsoft relationship and Senator Conroy ducks and weave in Senate Question Time. Read more »

    -- posted by Staff

  • Brendon Chase Sun eye Web developers with Netbeans 6.5

    Despite the recent employment axe hitting Sun the company has pushed out a new release of its Netbeans open source IDE with an eye to appeal more to Web developers. Read more »

    -- posted by Brendon Chase

  • Renai LeMay BarCamp buzz: Let the hacking continue

    Attending last weekend's BarCamp in Sydney, it was hard to escape the conclusion that a certain "dot-com bust" flavour had seeped into the kool aid previously being drunk by Australia's web 2.0 and early stage start-up sector. Read more »

    -- posted by Renai LeMay

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