Open Forum Europe

The International Organization for Standardization has thrown out four appeals against its ratification of Microsoft's Office Open XML document format.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have given the green light to publish the Microsoft-backed Office Open XML (OOXML) specification after organization leaders rejected appeals from four countries to protest the vote that approved OOXML as a standard.

IBM has laid out plans for a Microsoft-free PC by joining up with Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell and Red Hat to bring Linux systems to market next year.

Education procurement agency Becta has invited 21 suppliers to tender for £80m of proprietary and open source software supply for schools, as it seeks to replace its software licensing framework agreements.

But there are doubts as to whether the official sanctioning of open source in education will make a difference to the most technologically advanced schools.

During the LinuxWorld Expo in San Francisco, I met with Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards. We discussed document standards and the implications of ISO's controversial decision to grant fast-track approval to Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format.

Google is taking a step into the field of cryptography, with KeyCzar, an open-source tool which allows developers to use encryption within their applications

At the LinuxWorld conference in San Francisco, IBM executive Bob Sutor talks about what a desktop will mean in the future, saying it will focus more on mobile devices like iPhones and collaborations across platforms.

Microsoft's problems with OOXML just won't go away. MS-OOXML was supposed to supplant the Open Document Format (ODF), but is becoming an embarrassment. As a format it betrays its hurried origins, and is over-complex. At best, it has technical problems. At worst, it is barely fit for purpose.

OFE Comment - Having just returned from the Govtech 2008 conference in Durban and having to endure a long 11 hour flight I've had plenty of opportunity to mull over this question. Govtech is now the largest IT event in South Africa, organised by SITA – the State Information and Technology Agency – it was attended by close to 2000 delegates, eat your heart out Europe. I had been invited by SITA to deliver a keynote on Open Source and eGovernment, their assumption (?) being that more is happening in Europe than Africa – maybe?   Read more 

Presentation to Govtech 2008

Gov TV Interview (14MB)

Several open-source providers are in the running for a new Becta framework covering the supply of software licences to the education sector.

Novell, Sirius Corporation and LinuxIT are thought to be among 21 firms invited to tender for the approved supplier catalogue, worth a potential £80m over four years.

Submissions for the final round have to be in before 13 August. The final list of up to 10 suppliers will be unveiled in October.