Open XML Going Strong
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Jan 8, 2008

In recent months, there has been a growing support for and adoption of Ecma Office Open XML. Underlining the increasing usage of Open XML formats in application development, Intrasphere Technologies and MS Technology have developed solutions specific to customer needs based on Open XML schemas.

Intrasphere: 'Development time cut by 50%'

Intrasphere Technologies is a consulting firm that provides comprehensive consulting services and solutions to life science organizations for attaining maximum performance. The firm was faced with the challenge of providing a software solution that would help pharmaceutical companies adhere to regulations, as well as meet the need for structuring content for drug labeling.

Intrasphere developers in India used Open XML to develop PharmaCM - which supports structured content management and can be configured to support clinical trial registries and drug labeling. PharmaCM not only reduces the time-to-market, it also makes regulatory compliance easier and less time consuming, provides a consistent way for pharmaceutical companies to share information across platforms and allows greater reuse of information.

Elaborating on the reasons for using Open XML formats for its solution, Vinay Khubchandani, Lead Architect for Intrasphere Technologies said, "Open XML is a self describing XML format that allows easy conversion to other formats including other XML formats. It's great because it helps us embed our custom XML formats along with custom metadata inside the Open XML document. And being able to edit an Open XML document right inside word-processing environment beats everything. Open XML cuts development time by at least 50% - it gives us so many more options to achieve the required functionality in the most optimum way."

MS Technology: Reaping the Benefits of Open XML

MS Technology is a software development company specializing in imaging and image-processing technology. The company is headquartered in the US, with most of its operations taking place in India. Their customers demanded a platform-independent document format. The developers incorporated support for Open XML into its viewer products. Its modular nature allows high storage, which contributes to document creation and defines a document in individual files.

MS Technology also based the new file format container on the compressed '.zip' file format to reduce storage demands. All this has resulted in the company providing its customers better handling of corrupted files, reduced storage requirements, and increased choice. MS Technology has benefited directly too, given the time and cost savings with access to standardized specifications and easy-to-use XML schemas.

Tarun Kumar, Director of MS Technology adds, "We've reduced the amount of time spent on resolving formatting issues by 70% - and seen commensurate cost savings. There are other major benefits for our customers: With Open XML, you can view the bulk of a corrupted file, and that makes a big difference. Other formats, such as Open Document Format, can't defend against data loss the same way."

Commenting on the usage of Open XML, Sanjay Manchanda, Director of Microsoft Business Division said, "Developers across the world today are using Open XML in a variety of diverse and innovative solutions. In India too, companies like MS Technology and Intrasphere, with their products based on Open XML, are heralding a new trend that will have a positive impact on computing in the future."

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