Aatish Ramkaran : Technically speaking...

Go Microsoft Sales Team! Yay!!

aatishr — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:40:54 GMT

Hoo boy... I know I'm gonna catch a lot of flack when my non-IT friends see this video.

Come dig the musical stylings of Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band, as they belt out their no. 1 hit - "Rocking Our Sales"!!

Wonder what else will leak out of our sales and marketing departments. Be afraid... be very afraid...

Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map v2.0 released

aatishr — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:09:55 GMT

Friends, Romans, Office developers... lend me your ears!

A new version (2.0) of the Microsoft Office Interactive Developer Map has been released.

If you've never seen it before, it's a nifty little WPF application that allows you to drill down into any one of the Office System applications, and learn more about how to develop solutions on it.

This is the perfect starting point for Office Business Application (OBA) development.

If you're serious about Office Development, this is a must have reference!

And now it's Official

aatishr — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:02:05 GMT

As you may have seen in my last post, ISO had yet to release a public statement confirming that Open XML had indeed been approved as an ISO/IEC standard.

Here's the beef straight from ISO's website today.

... and a choice quote (emphasis is mine).

ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology – Office Open XML file formats, has received the necessary number of votes for approval as an ISO/IEC International Standard.

Approval required at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in the joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of ISO/IEC national body votes cast to be negative. These criteria have now been met with 75 % of the JTC 1 participating member votes cast positive and 14 % of the total of national member body votes cast negative.

Say hello to my little friend...

aatishr — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:29:33 GMT

The results are in.

Office Open XML, otherwise known as DIS 29500, has been approved as an ISO/IEC standard!!

Although ISO has not formally announced this to the public, it has released the results to it's members, the national standards bodies that were involved in the ratification of Open XML. This information has been showing up all over the Internet, preceding ISO's announcement.

The statement from ECMA confirms that there was an overwhelming majority of support for the standard, as only 14% of national standards bodies voted against it.

Brian Jones has more detailed voting figures, stating that 75% of P-members voted "Approve".

Open XML's official designation from this point forward will be IS 29500.

More information to come as the stories break. Stay tuned.

tech-ed's back!

aatishr — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:38:43 GMT

It's that time again...

Microsoft tech-ed South Africa 2008

has been announced!

The site is up and running and registration is open!

It's going to be very interesting this year, as our venue has changed from Sun City to the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre (Durban ICC).

The bigger venue will allow for more tracks, more breakout sessions, more hands-on-labs, more everything!

There was huge demand last year, but due to venue capacity limitations, we could only accommodate 1600 delegates. We're happy to announce that, this year, we've upped this limit to around 2500 delegates!

Due to the change in our model, travel and accommodation is NOT included in the conference fee.

I'll definitely be delivering a few sessions here - will keep you posted as things develop. Based on what I've been busy with for the last few months, I'm pretty sure I'll deliver at least one session on Open XML.

Looking forward to seeing you in August for my second tech-ed! Remember my first? :)

Don't forget the Early Bird Special!

Waiting for the word on DIS 29500

aatishr — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 10:17:27 GMT

After the close of voting at midnight, March 29th, ISO has been tallying the votes on Open XML, officially called DIS 29500 (Draft International Standard).

We've seen a lot of positive activity since the conclusion of the BRM, but will have to wait for the official word from ISO on whether Open XML has succeeded or not.

An official statement is expected from them sometime around noon today (March 31st). I don't think the standards world has ever generated this much excitement and tension before!

Stay tuned for updates...

The Votes are coming in...

aatishr — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:59:00 GMT

Tomorrow (March 29th 2008) is the final day in which national bodies can reconsider their position on Open XML becoming an ISO/IEC standard.

Since the BRM's conclusion, the countries which had initially voted "Disapprove with comments" (on September 2nd 2007) have been deciding whether or not to change to "Approve".

In the context of ISO/IEC standardization, this decision to change should be based on whether the modifications made during the BRM have sufficiently addressed the comments that were raised.

It's great to see this process working, and watching the reconsidered positive votes come in. Four noteworthy examples are the Czech Republic, Denmark, South Korea and Finland.

The Czech Republic had submitted 75 comments, and after the BRM, were completely satisfied with 74 responses and partially satisfied with 1. As 98.67% of their concerns were addressed, they changed their vote to "Approve".

Denmark had voted "Disapprove" and submitted 168 comments. They were satisfied with the relevant results of the BRM and have just announced that they've changed their position to "Approve".

South Korea had voted "Disapprove" with 25 comments. They have just announced their new "Approve" position.

Finland had voted "Abstain" and submitted 15 comments. Being satisfied with the outcome of the BRM, they announced their new position as "Approve".

I'm sure that more are on their way...

Improvements to the Open Specification Promise on Open XML

aatishr — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:56:18 GMT

Open Source Developers - this is great news for you!

Microsoft's Open Specification Promise (OSP) grants royalty free access to patents on specific technologies to implementers. Open XML is one of the (many) technologies included in this list.

This means that if you intend to implement Open XML in your application, any relevant patents inside Open XML are available to you completely free of charge. Free. Gratis. Without hindrance or obstacle. In fact, you don't even need to reference Microsoft in your application.

Sounds great right? Even so, some people weren't satisfied, and raised the issue that the OSP only covered the current version of the standard, and that Microsoft would consider coverage of future versions on a case by case basis.

Well, those hardworking folks in Redmond have modified the OSP so that it covers all future versions of the standard, on the condition that Microsoft is involved in the evolution.

'Involved in', not 'In control of'. :)

This means that royalty-free access to the patents in Open XML will be a permanent feature of this specification. It keeps getting better and better.

Some comparisons between Open XML and ODF

aatishr — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:00:26 GMT

Anti-Open XML lobbyists have long been crying foul on some of the flaws in the specification.

Two main points emerge from their perspective:

ODF is already an ISO standard, therefore there is no need for Open XML.
Open XML has a number of flaws which make it unsuitable for becoming an ISO standard.

The first point ignores the fact that Open XML and ODF were created to fulfil different needs.

Open XML provides complete support for representing (with 100% fidelity) the billions of existing Microsoft Office binary documents in existence today.

In addition, the specification allows for custom XML to be inserted into documents. It may sound simple, but this faeture represents a fundamental shift in how we think of documents. They are no longer just representations of data, they are now the (structured) containers for data as well. Please refer to my previous post for more information on this groundbreaking feature.

Based on the second point, ODF should have none of the flaws Open XML has, because it's already an ISO standard.

However, the fact remains that no standard is created perfectly the first time around. That's what the maintenance process is for.

In fact, ODF v1.0 (the only ISO standard of ODF) has no definition for spreadsheet formulae, but this is being addressed in v1.2 (as part of the maintenance process), which still needs to become an ISO standard.

Here's a quote from Jim Melton, the editor of the international SQL standard (which has been an ISO standard since 1987), speaking with regard to the "high number of comments" raised on Open XML,

Or perhaps most people were somewhat intimidated by the prospect of (thoroughly) reviewing a 6,000 page document. To put this in perspective for those who know SQL’s size and complexity, the sum of all nine parts of SQL is about 3950 pages. A ballot on SQL frequently receives several thousand comments, and we’ve been balloting versions of SQL for 20 years!

After the BRM, 98.73% of the proposed changes based on the comments were accepted. This was a huge leap forward in the technical quality of Open XML.

Brian Jones, Senior Program Manager for Office, recently posted an article describing some of the flaws in Open XML that also exist (sometimes to a higher degree!) in ODF v1.0 (an exisiting ISO standard).

Brian discusses all the "biggies", date formats, password hashing, printer settings and conformance clauses. These issues have been raised numerous times in the past, and are even now being resurrected and put forward to national standards bodies, in spite of the changes that occurred at the BRM that have corrected them.

I urge you, as a technical reader, to take a look at Brian's post, so that you have a broader perspective of Open XML and ODF.

HP speaks on standardization of Open XML

aatishr — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:47:57 GMT

Hewlett-Packard, or HP, depending on how old you are, has just released an official statement which describes it's support for the standardization of Open XML at ISO.

More importantly, HP believes that Open XML will co-exist with other document formats and that it should be up to the customers and marketplace to decide which format to use.

Here's the statement:

Hewlett-Packard Company is in favor of standards for office document formats, including the Office Open XML (OOXML) and Open Document Format (ODF) standards. We believe that the two standards will co-exist interoperably, and that customers should have the opportunity to select the standards which best fit their needs.

HP believes that the international standardization process is working. This process has already significantly improved the OOXML specification and additional evolution of it will take place under control of the global community if the specification is ratified by ISO/IEC JTC 1.

In the current vote on OOXML at JTC 1, HP is supporting an affirmative vote in those national standards bodies in which HP is active.

The fate of ODF if Open XML loses

aatishr — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 06:39:23 GMT

Patrick Durusau is the project editor of ISO/IEC 26300 (the Open Document Format (ODF) specification), as well as the ODF Technical Committee Editor in OASIS . As such, he has highly respected, and relevant insights into the world of document formats and the standardisation thereof.

You would expect, as the person most technically aware of the ODF specification, that he would be an ardent opponent of Open XML. This is far from the truth, however.

Since February, he has been releasing letters calling for sanity around the FUD campaign surrounding Open XML. He has discussed issues ranging from the openness of Open XML to possible co-evolution with ODF.

He recently wrote about the impact on ODF if Open XML does not become an ISO standard, something which a lot of people had not considered previously.

He raises three very important points:

OpenDocument currently lacks formula definitions for spreadsheets. (To appear in OpenDocument 1.2.) Many core financial functions in spreadsheets are undefined except for actual Excel output. That output varies by version and service pack of MS Office. What happens if OpenDocument and OpenXML reach different definitions of those functions?

OpenDocument does not presently support legacy features of Microsoft formats. That will be easier with a formal definition of those features. Without OpenXML, OpenDocument has no authoritative definition of those legacy features. That delays OpenDocument supporting them in some future release.

OpenDocument does not have a robust mapping to the current Microsoft format. That requires an OpenXML that has completed the standards process. If OpenXML is unclear, it must be fixed in order to create a robust mapping between the two.

The bottom line is that OpenDocument, among others, will lose if OpenXML loses.

It's interesting to be able see things at this level. He provides a view of the document format ecosystem, specifically how differing formats can affect each other, based on the needs of the industry.

Wouter clarifies "Custom XML" support in Open XML

aatishr — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 07:46:36 GMT

One of the (many) blogs I track is that of Wouter Van Vugt. It's a great resource for all the technical issues and goings-on in the wonderful world of Open XML. I even had the pleasure of meeting him at the Office Developer Conference in San Jose, where he obligingly autographed a copy of his book for me.

Wouter's post on Open XML's "Custom XML" feature effectively combats the FUD that is being spread on this issue.

He explains, in clear, concise, technical terms, what "Custom XML" support really is and separates the FUD from the Facts.

Brilliant stuff! Couldn't have done it better myself!

:-)

A roadmap for the Open XML SDK

aatishr — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:28:10 GMT

The roadmap for the Open XML SDK was unveiled yesterday, which plots the path of the SDK all the way into the Office 14 timeframe.

The original CTP version of the SDK was released in June 2007.The updated CTP is expected next month (April 2008), with a v1.0 release set for May 2008.

Go here to find out what's coming in the v1.0 and v2.0 releases.

Supercharge your OBA developments with VSTO Power Tools!

aatishr — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 23:18:19 GMT

Office development got you down? Dreaming of OBAs, but just can't seem to get them off the drawing board?

Well, never fear, cos I've got good some good news for you!

If you haven't already heard, Microsoft has released a set of power tools for VSTO/VSTA that greatly speed up the development of Office or VSTA based solutions.

Get 'em here.

It's a set of 9 tools that were announced at the Office Developer Conference (an event I was lucky enough to attend).

Here's a brief summary.

Office Custom UI Manager

A set of classes for coordinating multiple instances of Ribbon, custom task pane and custom form region.

Office Interop API Extensions

A set of C# classes for handling parameterized properties, optional/named parameters, and for LINQ-enabling Office collection objects.

Open XML Package Editor

A graphical treeview-based editor for examining and editing Open XML Package files (including Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents).

Ribbon IDs ToolWindow

A custom tool window that displays all re-usable built-in Office Ribbon IDs.

SharePoint Feature Sweeper

A GUI tool that cleans up unwanted SharePoint features from the target server.

SharePoint Workflow Package Generator

A build tool to package a SharePoint workflow project so that the developer can hand the workflow to the admin for deployment.

VSTO/VSTA Pipeline Verifier

A GUI tool that reflects over custom pipeline assemblies to validate the complete VSTA pipeline.

VSTO Developer Cleaner

A GUI tool that cleans up the developer's machine from leftover build artifacts in the registry and certificate store.

VSTO Troubleshooter

A diagnostic tool that examines a machine for the necessary pre-requisites for running VSTO solutions.

Like all power tools, they're released independently of the usual Visual Studio release cycle, but stand a good chance of being included in the next version (fingers crossed).

My personal favourite here has got to be the Open XML Package Editor (formerly known as 'Grail'). This allows you to edit an Open XML file (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) directly within Visual Studio. You can add parts and relationships, and it detects if the file has been modified externally.

It also presents a treeview of the Open XML package.

Sweet!

The Open XML Ballot Resolution Meeting has successfully concluded

aatishr — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 01:12:29 GMT

The Ballot Resolution Meeting for DIS 29500 (Open XML) has concluded on a very positive note.

I hear a long, collective sigh of relief.

Like I mentioned in a previous post, the BRM is intended for national standards bodies to reach consensus on the technical issues surrounding the standard. To this end, it appears to have been a resounding success. Here's a quote from Brian Jones' post on the BRM.

The meeting closed with clapping and cheering, folks were really happy about the improved proposals for the specification and it was a very positive experience for me personally.

Jason Matusow has posted a report on the BRM. Here's the quintessential quote...

The changes adopted (and denied) were based on consensus among all National Bodies. This is exactly how BRMs are meant to function. I'll say it again - by any rational measure of ISO/IEC JTC 1 ballot resolution meetings, this one was a complete success.

Based on the improvements to the specification made during the BRM, national bodies now have 30 days within which to change their vote from "Disapprove" to "Approve".

Stay tuned.