Xandros to Provide Enhanced Interoperability Between Standardized XML Document Formats

June 21, 2007 - 9:00am

Xandros today announced it will join Microsoft and other companies to build and ship open source translators between documents stored in Ecma Office Open XML and Open Document Formats. The translators, being developed through the Open XML/ODF Translator project, will be made available to Xandros users via the Xandros Networks update facility. Every Xandros product that includes OpenOffice.org will be equipped with the translators.

This announcement underscores the shared view of Xandros and Microsoft that competing office productivity applications should make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another and allow them to use their operating system and office productivity applications of choice.

“This is good news for customers. Xandros and Microsoft share the view that competing office productivity applications should make it easy for customers to exchange files with one another,” said Tom Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft. “Mixed system environments are becoming more common, and we believe in delivering interoperability by design for the benefit of our customers. Our ongoing collaborative relationships with commercial open source companies like Xandros help us achieve that goal.”

“We are delighted to join forces with Microsoft and others to provide interoperability between standardized XML document formats,” said Andreas Typaldos, Xandros CEO. “The work of the world is done using various document formats as well as operating systems, so it is vital to provide our customers with the means interoperate with ease in this diverse environment.”

Office Document Compatibility

The Ecma Office Open XML format is an open standard file format for office applications that can be freely implemented by multiple applications on multiple platforms. While the Open XML format was originated by Microsoft as the new default format used by Microsoft Office 2007, Ecma technical committee members such as Apple, Intel Corp. and Novell Corporation further developed the formats before they were ratified as an Ecma standard this past December. . The resulting standard enables the building of open source translators so that vendors working across applications and platforms can easily take advantage of the formats in their own solutions, and enables the seamless sharing of information from documents with back end systems as well as heterogeneous computing environments. ISO is currently evaluating the Open XML formats under the Fast Track process for potential acceptance as an ISO standard as well.

With an estimated 100 million users, OpenOffice.org is a full-featured, open source office productivity suite with word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and database applications. OpenOffice.org currently supports the OpenDocument (ODF) file format, which is an ISO-standardized, XML-based file format specification for office applications maintained by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards). The OpenDocument format ensures information saved in spreadsheets, documents and presentations is freely accessible to any OpenDocument-supporting application. OpenOffice.org is available free of charge at http://www.openoffice.org. Xandros provides and supports OpenOffice.org as part of its Xandros Linux Desktop.

The open source Open XML/ODF Translator project can be visited at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter.