Microsoft never relinquishes control easily; this time, it buckled to the bureaucrats. But its decision, related to its upcoming Office 12 suite, should help customers, particularly those that want to customize Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
Microsoft will submit its Office Open XML--the format for files created in Office 12, due late next year—to Ecma International in Geneva for ratification within a year or so as an industry standard. It’s not a first—parts of Microsoft’s .Net Framework have been approved by the group. But in doing so, Microsoft gives up unilateral control over how Office documents work.
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