"We are supporting several open source projects"
By Pankaj Maru
Mumbai, Jun 13, 2008

Amid the ongoing debate about OOXML and ODF across the world,Vijay Kapoor, national technology officer of Microsoft India, talks on company's recent ODF announcement, it's approach towards open source platform and his take on open source users. Excerpts from an e-interview with Pankaj Maru

Can you explain what exactly Microsoft's announcement regarding ODF means?

We have announced that Microsoft Office will add support for Open Document Format (ODF) 1.1, Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A and, XML Paper Specification (XPS) within Word 2007, Excel 2007 and PowerPoint 2007. This support will be provided in 2007 Microsoft Office Service Pack 2.

Additionally, in the next version of Office, codenamed O14, we will update the already substantial support provided for IS29500, the Open XML specification that was recently approved by ISO/IEC members. What this basically means is that Microsoft is offering customers greater choice and, more flexibility among document formats in Office, and new opportunities to developers and competitors.

These steps are in addition to Microsoft's previous commitment to provide new Applications Programming Interfaces(APIs) in 2007 Office (in Service Pack 2) that will allow developers to plug in other formats, so they show up on the drop down menu and, can be selected as the default formats by users. As a company, we have made a commitment to interoperability, and all these are steps to towards that initiative.

Why did Microsoft take the decision to include ODF in Office 2007 SP2 so late, especially since it will be released in mid-2009 onwards and ODF has already been accepted by ISO? Any particular reason for the late decision?

We've announced support to ODF as an effort to enhance choice among formats in Office and to make it even easier for customers to use the format that best meets their needs. Prior to any major announcement however, we dedicate our energies toward detailed research, in depth study of the market, and thorough customer and industry feedback.

The same is true of the expansion of the range of document formats supported in the Microsoft flagship Office productivity suite - this decision was taken on the basis of input from customers and valuable feedback from Governments.

However, Microsoft was already supporting an open-source translator project at SourceForge (http://odf-converter.sourceforge.net/) over the past year that provide translators to allow for interoperability between applications based on ODF (OpenDocument) 1.0 standards and Microsoft Office.

As a part of this interoperability initiative, add-ins have been developed (and continue to be further worked upon) that can be installed on top of Microsoft Office Word (document processing), Excel (spreadsheet) and PowerPoint (presentation) applications (Office 2007 / 2003 / XP version) to allow for opening and saving OpenDocument format / ODF files (.odt, .ods and .odp) that adheres to ODF 1.0 specifications.

In future, will Microsoft add other file formats and support it on its platform and software?

Yes, we are continuing down the path of providing APIs in Office that enable easy plug in of additional formats and users selection of them as their default formats. All these efforts are consistent with our view that customers should be able to choose the format that best meets their needs and that increasing choices for customers also creates additional opportunities for economic growth for partners, competitors, and most importantly, for innovation to flourish.

We plan on taking steps to make it easier for end users of Office to make use of the translator by promoting its distribution through our channel and other means. We will also promote the development of resources to provide support for users of the translator.

We are focused on working with customers and other vendors to establish real-world interoperability between implementation and will be adding other file formats like PDF, XPS, etc. within other Microsoft products.

Has Microsoft changed its view on open source software and its users?

Microsoft's approach to technology solutions has always been customer -centric. Today, as the level of heterogeneity in technology environments increases we find an increased need for products and technologies to talk to each other.

As part of our response to this customer need we are ensuring that our technologies are able to interoperate with open source software - both commercial and otherwise, and by doing so are also increasing opportunities for business partners regardless of the underlying development model; and are also increasing opportunities for developers to learn and create on multiple technology platform. In fact, to date developers have created more than 79,000 open source applications using Microsoft platform technologies.

We are focused on our engagement with the open source community through industry collaboration, Open source development, i.e. promoting interoperability with open source software through engagements organized by the Microsoft Open Source Software Lab and on the Microsoft community Web site, Port25.

Further, we are supporting several open source projects on CodePlex, GotDotNet, and SourceForge and offering access to Microsoft source code through programs such as the Shared Source Initiative (SSI) and the Government Security Program (GSP). Our Open Source Technology Program is another initiative designed to further open source research and, development of open source applications on the Windows platform in collaboration with leading national engineering institutes in the country.