Some shoddy and inadequate reporting at TechCrunch's CrunchGear blog has at least prompted Microsoft's Mac Business Unit to post more info about the new Microsoft Office XML file formats. Mac Mojo, the Office for Mac Team Blog, confirms:
The Mac BU WILL issue free, downloadable file format converters that allow users to read the new Microsoft Office Open XML Format. We announced that publicly at WWDC, and nothing has changed.
And it adds:
We are running on target and expect to release a free public beta version of the file format converters in Spring 2007, with final converters available six to eight weeks after we launch our next version of Office for Mac (which, as previously reported, will be available 6-8 months after general availability of Win Office.) The next version of Office for Mac will natively read the Open XML Format; users of the current version of Office will have converters in order to maintain compatibility with the new Office for Windows.
The sensationalist and misleading CrunchGear post claimed, in its title, Use MS Office On A Mac? You're About To Get Screwed. Unfortunately, the author couldn't be bothered to look up the XML format specs and remained regrettably ignorant about them being simple zipped packages. (Hint: unzip them and there's a marked up XML file inside.)
Then there's CrunchGear's appalling ignorance of the importance of the new XML file formats to Apple and Apple users in general. Putting the real content in open standard marked-up XML instead of old and almost impenetrable binaries will make cross-platform and cross-application compatibility both easier and more reliable. And Apple is participating in the process: along with the British Library, Intel and other supporters, Apple is on the ECMA International Technical Committee (TC45) that's setting the Office Open XML standard formats.
It looks as though CrunchGear has simply swallowed this "story" from APC mags X-Factor, which posted The lock-out begins for Office Mac users. Perhaps this is the kind of thing that Mac fanboys appreciate. However, if CrunchGear wants to retain any mainstream credibility, it will have learn not to regurgitate this sort of rubbish.
