Microsoft to open file formats for Office 11

[JamesR]

Microsoft's Office 11 suite will contain a new XML-based file format. This is the first time Microsoft has opened their file formats in 15 years. Read more about Office 11 at CNET .

[anarchic_teapot]

Oh joy, Office finally compatible with an industry standard!

I still don't want to use it, though. XP is an abomination. And if you think the screenshots of the OS4 GUI are ugly, you should see what was on the link posted on OSNews yesterday.

[Alkemyst]

"you should see what was on the link posted on OSNews yesterday."

what link ?

[Coder]

@anarchic_teapot

I still don't want to use it, though. XP is an abomination.

I agree 100% on that. Ugly as hell. And still it sells pretty good. :ranting:

Coder

[gnarly]

@coder Re XP:

I agree 100% on that. Ugly as hell. And still it sells pretty good.

In its defence, its totally skinnable, so it doesn't have to look like that. If you don't like the spangliness, TURN IF OFF ;-)

Oh, and the link was some Windows "Longhorn" (childish snigger) beta screenshots. Erm... here.

[anarchic_teapot]

In its defence, its totally skinnable, so it doesn't have to look like that. If you don't like the spangliness, TURN IF OFF

Oooh, you bet I will. Actually, my main objection is the bloat making the damn thing so bloody slow (and no "it flies on my p4 at 1.8 Ghz" - you shouldn't NEED so powerful a chip just to run the bloody OS. Or so much RAM) and the way those wizards treat you like a moron while limiting the configuration options.
From the public announcement, as discussed by The Register, it looks as though they may be opening their standards (though the phrase "based on" always sounds ominous: M$ are hot on taking standards and making proprietary mods - ask the Java people), but this is to be compensated for by locking the users into other M$ apps. Half the features would only be usable with .Net or Outlook and similar crap. JFC, but I hate paying over the top for an app, only to have to fork out even more for another I don't even like if I want to use all the features I bought the first app for.



At this point, I wandered over to   Xandros, about whose new distro I have heard wondrous things. Pity it doesn't have a PPC version.

[yssing]

I just heards MS complaining that XP don't sell nearly as much as they would like it to do.
People seems to be satisfied with win2k.
 :-D  :-D  :-D

[AmigaMac]

I just heards MS complaining that XP don't sell nearly as much as they would like it to do.

I wonder if they're going to threaten themselves that they'll stop support of XP because of less than stellar sales (just like they did to Apple this past summer)!

 :-D

[Housey]

Oh dear, Oh dear.... seems they have released an early video of Longhorn.

You can view it here. in WMV format.

Scary how much it looks like OSX.  Certainly puts more pressure on those trying to compete with M$  :-D

[System]

(and no "it flies on my p4 at 1.8 Ghz" - you shouldn't NEED so powerful a chip just to run the bloody OS. Or so much RAM)

Hehe, I know what you mean. I find that most of the people who say things like that have never used anything faster. My mother thinks Hotmail is fast because it's quicker than writing a letter!

OTOH, there does come a point where faster CPUs are justified. I've never used an Amiga faster than an 060... and I have to say it's pretty slow.

[ne_one]

The Xandros desktop looks pretty impressive.

It's really a shame that MorphOS and OS4+ haven't gone with a GUI architecture that was modelled on X11 -- not as an implementation, but as an API and set of conventions. It would provide a level of professionalism and some common ground to bring us into this century - not to mention making porting of applications like StarOffice so much easier.

[strobe]

Have you actually seen the X11 API? It SUCKS!!!! It's also bloated as hell.

Oh, and X11 apps provide nothing but total chaos.

StarOffice also sucks. The worst interface Sun Microsystems has ever created, and that's saying a LOT!

Geez.

[JamesR]

The thing is, pretty soon, the only machines around will, for the most part, be machines with light-speed CPUs. At that point, it will very much cease to matter how "bloated" an app is. If it's fast, it's fast.

Now, not that I'm promoting Office. I do use it, I have to for my job, and XP is an improvement in many ways (and a step back in many others), but I'm just excited to see how quickly StarOffice etc. will leap on the file format and undercut Microsoft big-time.

[Ilwrath]

@JamesR

but I'm just excited to see how quickly StarOffice etc. will leap on the file format and undercut Microsoft big-time.

Ahh.... But here's the part that's missing...  quoting from the CNET article...

The company is adopting Extensible Markup Language (XML) as a second file format in all Office applications, to enable better data exchange between the productivity suite and back-end software, such as databases.

It's NOT a replacement format, it's an ADDITIONAL format.  All data will still be manipulated in the proprietary formats, so while you'll be able to get the TEXT out of a Word document with XML, you still won't get the right FORMATTING, just like 3rd party programs already do.

Then, with the release of Palladium, your documents will be encrypted to the APPLICATION that created them.  Part of "trusted computing", as Microsoft defines it, is that only "trusted applications" can edit your data...  The catch is, you can't define which applications you choose to trust.  It wouldn't matter if Microsoft then made Word's format plaintext, you couldn't open it, because it would be encrypted against a Word-specific key.  

Don't think for a blind minute that Microsoft is going to give up proprietary file-access.