Microsoft's principal wrong is distributing a nonfree operating system, Microsoft Windows. That system is jam-packed with malicious functionalities, including surveillance of users, DRM, censorship ...

North Korea is an interesting country to look at from a technology perspective. Under the regime, its citizens are entirely cut off from the outside world, and entry to the country is severely ...

OOXML is currently available in two versions – “strict”, which conforms to an international standard but is only available in Microsoft Word; and “transitional”, which is more widely ...

OOXML is a standard that was created by Microsoft, pushed through the International Standards Organisation by Microsoft despite heavy criticism, and is pretty much only used by Microsoft Office ...

According to Schulz, that same read-write functionality in Novell's OpenOffice.org was intentionally scuttled between 2007 and 2008 when Microsoft co-opted it to support its OOXML lobbying efforts.

Although Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format became an ISO standard two years ago, the company still hasn't built any software that truly complies with the standard.

The influx of P members whose only interest is the fast-tracking of ECMA 376 [OOXML] as ISO 29500 has led to the failure of a number of key ballots. Though P members are required to vote, 50% of our ...

Documents created using the Office Open XML document format can now be viewed through a simple Firefox plug-in, while OOXML's compatibility with ODF and Apache has also been enhanced.

Just how much impact an ISO-approved OOXML will actually have on the IT marketplace -- or on users of office software -- remains to be seen. On the plus side, an approved standard should make it ...