14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has yet to wrap up with the distribution of Office 2007 SP1, and is already looking ahead to the next service pack, in a move designed to offer additional choices for end users but also to take interoperability to the next level, in terms of the company's flagship productivity suite. Office 2007 Service Pack 1 was made available for download in December 2007 and will be offered through Automatic Updates in mid-June 2008. By the summer of 2009, Microsoft plans to finalize Office 2007 Service Pack 2, with a focus on delivering additional standards support with the release.
XML Paper Specification, Portable Document Format 1.5, PDF/A and Open Document Format v1.1 will all be supported in the next version of Office 2007. But Microsoft is by no means willing to stop at just offering extra support for XML, PDF and ODF, and announced that it would get involved in the future evolution of the formats. "We are committed to providing Office users with greater choice among document formats and enhanced interoperability between those formats and the applications that implement them," explained Chris Capossela, senior vice president for the Microsoft Business Division.
By supporting XML, PDF and ODF, Microsoft is delivering an example of its commitment to interoperability, however the Office System will remain focused on the Office Open XML file format, which has become an ISO standard in March 2007. The Redmond company indicated that Open XML would be updated to fit both Office 2007 SP2 as well as Office 14, the next iteration of the productivity suite.
"By increasing the openness of our products and participating actively in the development and maintenance of document format standards, we believe we can help create opportunities for developers and competitors, including members of the open source communities, to innovate and deliver new value for customers," Capossela added.
But the decision to incorporate native Save As functionality for XML PDF and ODF into Office 2007 SP2 has brought Microsoft yet again under antitrust scrutiny from the European Union. Office 2007 Sp2 will permit users to save documents into the XPS and PDF, but open, edit and save documents in ODF. In this regard, the European Commission revealed that it would look into the inclusion of ODF in Office 2007 SP2.
"The Commission would welcome any step that Microsoft took towards genuine interoperability, more consumer choice and less vendor lock-in. In its ongoing antitrust investigation concerning interoperability with Microsoft Office, the Commission will investigate whether the announced support of ODF (OpenDocument format) in Office leads to better interoperability and allows consumers to process and exchange their documents with the software product of their choice," reads the statement from the EU antitrust regulators.