News (62)

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 »

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 »

South African government adopts ODF

The South African government said on Tuesday that it is to adopt Open Document Format as its preferred standard for software interoperability. Read more »

Microsoft to standardise Office formats

Microsoft intends to submit file formats for its new Office 12 applications to the European standards body ECMA International. The company hopes this will allay concern about its level of control over document formats. Read more »

ODF finally defeats OOXML in document format war?

Microsoft will add native support to Office 2007 for the OpenDocument Format (ODF) instead of OOXML because of compatibility issues — but Microsoft refuses to admit that ODF has won the document format war. Read more »

EC reluctant to back OpenDocument

The European Commission is reluctant to recommend the OpenDocument file format, even though the format has been endorsed by international standards groups. 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 »

ISO approval 'unlikely for Microsoft Open XML'

The International Organisation for Standardisation is unlikely to adopt Microsoft Office Open XML format, now that it has approved the OpenDocument Format, according to analyst group Gartner. 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 »

Office standards battle grinds on

Standards body Ecma International has created a committee to standardise Microsoft Office document formats, handing the software giant a victory in an intensifying struggle over desktop software. Read more »

Features (14)

Is government switched on?

E-business can do a lot for improving government and health services, but is Australia taking advantage? Read more »

Open source: More than just free beer

In response to a recent article questioning the motives of governments that use open source technology, Australian commentator Con Zymaris hits back at Andrew Parsons' anti-open source stance. Read more »

50 significant moments from internet history

We take you through 50 defining moments of the internet. Read more »

Effective and affordable User testing

At the recent Web Directions South UX conference in Melbourne, Lisa Herrod, the Principal Usability consultant at Scenario Seven offered advice on usability testing with her presentation -- "User testing for the rest of Us". Read more »

Microsoft plays open but patent jaws still have teeth

Despite Microsoft's claim it will not sue developers that build free open source software on Microsoft platforms, a caveat leaves a yawning space for its legal teeth to gnash those that commercialise the software. Read more »

Open source vs open standards

Customers and government bodies should focus on products with open standards and realise the pitfalls of open source, argues Scott Petty, Dimension Data Australia COO. Read more »

10 security problems unique to IT

Organisations face a host of security concerns driven by the power of technology and the vulnerabilities inherent in its use. IT pros have to be vigilant about all these issues, from system penetration threats to hardware portability to employee turnover. Read more »

XML--Rodney, are we there yet?

After initially creating a lot of buzz in the late days of the dot-com boom, XML seemed in danger of becoming the Rodney Dangerfield of the technology world. Now, it appears that XML might finally be getting the respect it deserves in the marketplace. Read more »

What the open source industry stands for

I read Iain Ferguson's "Linux: Time to take the next step" piece recently and thought he had captured the zeitgeist of the Linux industry market well: if we were still in 1998. Read more »

Anti-Linux response: The FUD-slinging continues

Con Zymaris, CEO of Australian IT services company CyberSource, attempts to set the record straight over recent industry comments that his company is muddying the waters when it comes to determining the true cost of corporate open source deployment. Read more »

Blog (1)

Q&A with EditMe: A wiki for non-geeks

Brendon Chase [blogs:codemonkeybusiness] -- Finally, a wiki CMS solution that you can safely give to your clients to use. But sshhhh... don't call it a wiki... 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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