Friday, March 7, 2008

Microsoft shows off open document lab in Cambridge

Microsoft Corp. today held the unveiling of its new Document Interoperability Initiative at the software giant's Cambridge offices, saying that it will test compatibility of Microsoft Office Open XML formats with those from other companies.

According to officials from Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the software stalwart is joined in the initiative by a variety of software vendors including local firms Novell Inc. of Waltham; DataViz Inc. of Milford, Conn.; and Nuance Communications Inc. of Burlington; along with Mark Logic Corp. of San Carlos, Calif., and Quickoffice Inc. of Plano, Texas.

Initiative plans include hosting a series of labs around the world, of which the Cambridge event is the first, bringing software vendors together to test how their formats work with Office Open XML and each other. Specifically, the Cambridge lab is going to be testing interoperability among Office Open XML formats and the Open Document Format (ODF) on various platforms and devices such as Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Linux and Windows Mobile, according to officials.

Microsoft also took the opportunity to announce the release of a new translator between ODF and Open XML for Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. Officials say that the software company is aiming to learn from this latest release toward making it easier for users to take advantage of other document formats, beyond ODF and Open XML.

Further document interoperability labs are planned this spring in South Korea and Germany, according to Microsoft officials.

Founded in 1975, Microsoft reported a profit of $14 billion for 2007 on revenue of $51.1 billion.