Articles Related to document formats

Microsoft went on the offensive Wednesday with a Valentine's Day attack on IBM openly accusing its rival of trying to subvert Microsoft's efforts to standardize its new document format and in turn destabilize customer choices.

In a move some think has the potential to stall the adoption of OpenDocument Format (ODF) as an international standard, Microsoft Corp. has joined a group that takes part in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) voting process to standardize ODF.

Microsoft Corp. said it would offer its Word, Excel and PowerPoint document formats as open standards, a move that could spark a war with technology rivals over standard document formats. The development comes as a group of technology rivals led by IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. are mobilizing a global effort to push the OASIS consortium's Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) as a global standard format for these kinds of documents.

A standards effort that aims to do for business-to-business documents what the Dewey Decimal System does for library collections is gaining momentum.