November 17 - 12:05pm EST   After brief period of beta testing, Sun says it has released the final version of StarOffice 9, its work suite aimed directly at competing with Microsoft Office. Unlike the Microsoft software, StarOffice is open-source, being based on OpenOffice 3.0; StarOffice 9 is also the first version of Sun's program to be coded natively for the Mac, and allows users to read Microsoft's Open XML format, though not save in it. [full story]

June 25 - 1:45am EDT   In addition to its latest Office 2004 XML update and Office 2008 stability update, Microsoft on Tuesday quietly (and finally) released its much-anticipated Open XML File Format Converter for Mac 1.0, which allows users to convert Open XML files that were created in Office 2008 for Mac or Office 2007 for Windows. The software allows them to open, edit, and save the files in earlier versions of Office for Mac. Open XML Converter can convert Word documents, Excel workbooks, and PowerPoint presentations that are in the Open XML Format and can convert and open a single file, or convert a large number of files. The download is 45MB; it is available free of charge. [full story]

April 1 - 4:40pm EDT   Microsoft's Office Open XML open format for electronic documents has been voted in as a global industry standard by the ISO and IEC, the software company said on Tuesday. The decision, to be officially announced on Wednesday, has been over 14 months in the making. Last September, the standardization was rejected as the format did not receive the required two-thirds of votes from participating national body members of the ISO, but a second ballot that closed on Saturday netted a 75 percent majority in favor. [full story]

March 6 - 1:15pm EST   Microsoft has launched what it calls the Document Interoperability Initiative, a program to test and improve how well certain document formats work across multiple platforms and operating systems. The company will host a series of lab events around the world for this purpose, and today met with other outfits such as Novell, Nuance and Quickoffice at a first event, which was set in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The focus of the meeting was on the open ODF format, most famously used in OpenOffice, and Microsoft's less popular Open XML standard, supported almost exclusively by the company's Office suites. [full story]

December 21 - 10:15am EST   Microsoft has released a new beta of its Open XML File Format Converter for Mac OS X. The utility converts Open XML documents into a format readable by Office v. X or Office 2004 for Mac, and supports batch operations in addition to single-file use. Five different file types can be altered: these include standard and macro-enabled Word documents (.DOCX and .DOCM), as well as PowerPoint shows, templates and presentations (.PPSX, .POTX and .PPTX files). [full story]