Daniel Ingitaraj (DPE, Singapore)

OPEN XML Getting Adoption

It is great to see the momentum behind ECMA OPEN XML. What is impressive with this list below is the number of applications on other platforms besides Windows. The Latest news was iPHONE using OPEN XML for reading documents and Neo Office suite for Mac.

 

Windows	Mac OS X	Linux	Other Operating systems or Operating System independent
Altsoft XML2PDF server 2007 AltViewer documents preview Altova XML Spy Corel Office Create Word 2007 documents without Word installed doxc to RTF Madcap Flare Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP and Office 2003 Microsoft Office 2007 Mindjet's MindManager Monarch V.9.0 from Datawatch ODF-Converter OOX-UOF Converter Open ERP Software Open XML Translator Open XML translator for OpenOffice (for Linux and Windows Versions of OpenOffice.org) Open XML Writer PythonOffice (Python API to read and write Excel XML documents from within Python programming language) Sourceforge Project to allow .NET(C#) developer to have component that will interact with Open Xml file Special Templates for Master Thesis Word 2007 Map Editor for Mindjet MindManager Xpertdoc Studio 2007 reporting solution	docx convertor for the Mac docx to html Konverter docx to RTF Konverter MacLinkPlus Deluxe version 16 by DataViz Microsoft Office 2008 Neo Office 2.1 Sun Open XML import filter for spreadsheets Word Counter 2.2.1 docx readers for the iPhone	Gnumeric – open source Spreadsheet Open Office –Novell, Linspire, Xandros, TurboLinux editions Open XML translator for OpenOffice (for Linux and Windows Versions of OpenOffice.org)	Docx2Doc Web Service DOCX convertor on Palm handheld devices OpenXML4J - Open XML framework for Java OpenXMLDeveloper.org (hundred of developers, multiple platforms) PHPExcel - Web Development (PHP) WebService with mailing of Document, docx to HTML Word 2007 file(docx) construction using Java

Singapore Companies adopting OPEN XML:

One of the local technology company Inchone started using OPEN XML in their Learning Management Application. Prior to using Open XML, Inchone encountered issues when mass uploading user profiles to their Learning Management System. Some of the issues they faced were

1. Excel had to be installed at the App Server
2. Performance used to slow down when large number of records were imported or multiple users tried to import simultaneously
3. A service has to be run at the Server to kill the Excel objects that are not closed properly
4. MS Excel License Fees were involved increasing the cost of their application
5. Users needed MS Excel

Now that they have started using OPEN XML in their application. The benefits they could see were :

1. Elimination of MS Excel on the Server and consequently saving on license fees
2. Better performance, since no need to create Excel object at the server
3. Thousands of records can be imported in, by multiple users without any performance issues and the OpenXML file can be zipped.(more than 50% file size saving)
4. No need for services to be executed for clean up
5. Users continue to use Excel to change the user profiles or can use other tools to change the profile (e.g. notepad)
6. Increase in security as the Open XML file can be encrypted

It is great to hear such stories of local companies who are using OPEN XML innovatively  to deliver better quality products and services to their customers.

About OPEN XML:

a. What is OPEN XML  - http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/about.aspx 

b. Why OPEN XML - http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/whyopenxml.aspx 

c. How companies like iLOG, Datawatch are using OPEN XML and solving business problems : http://www.openxmlcommunity.org/casestudies.aspx 

d. Want to get started on OPENXML : OPEN XML Developer Workshop Content 

e. OPEN XML Explained - eBook by Wouter Van Vugt  the 1st book on OPEN XML Development

This 128-page book covers the basics of Open XML, including many of the topics covered in the Open XML developer workshops, as well as several additional topics. The author, Wouter Van Vugt, is a software development trainer/consultant who specializes in the Open XML file formats. You may know from his participation in the forums here on OpenXMLDeveloper.org, or from his blog where he covers Open XML and other .NET development topics.