Imaging Experts

ISO to fast-track Microsoft OpenXML

ComputerWorld is reporting that the International Standards Organization (ISO) has agreed to fast track the standardization of Microsoft's OpenXML specification over objections "by several key voting countries" as well as corporations such as IBM.

-Sean

Warning Shot?

Escalation on the XML document front... Microsoft has posted an open letter discussing the conflict around ODF and Open XML. It seems that they are no longer going to sit by and watch IBM try to sabotage their efforts to get Open XML approved by ISO, the next step in the standardization of their XML format for Office.

Was the letter warranted? Perhaps. To me, the more IBM appears to stonewall Open XML, whether it be through independent employee blogs, their vote with the ECMA, or straight up corporate marketing, the more it seems they fear the format for monetary reasons, and not the principals of interoperability and ease of use, or open software in general.

I'm no Microsoft proponent, nor am I anti-IBM, but to me it sounds like the real reason IBM is trying to block Open XML is because they are afraid their format will be stuck with a tiny market share (as they are now) if this format is formally adopted by ISO. There is no question a lot of their ammunition for getting corporations and governments to switch from MS Office goes out the window if it does.

Look, the majority of word processing users out their use MS Office already, so ODF obviously has an uphill battle. Right now, ODF and MS Office don't play very nicely together. There are a few solutions, although they are quite difficult given the current documentation and binary format of Word. However, with independent projects to enable transformation from ODF to Open XML and vice-versa, people will no longer be handcuffed to one format or the other, at least that's the current hypothesis.

Size of the specification is not important. What is important is that plenty of tools already exist to manipulate XML and ZIP, both of which are standards, which immediately makes working with the new Open XML format much easier than with its binary older sibling. And that documentation going from 2,000 pages in first draft to 6,000 pages when it was finally approved? Great. Be glad it's extensive. Who wants to guess what goes where, and how, when trying to work with a file format? That's like guessing how much habanero chile powder to put in your salsa. Four teaspoons sound about right? Good luck with that.

The bottom line here is that while Microsoft and IBM have always had dislike for each other, Microsoft has affirmed with this letter that they won't be afraid to take off their gloves for this battle. IBM may learn quickly that when picking a fight with someone, be sure it's for the right reasons, and it's not with the kid with the most friends.

- Chris

Open Skirmishing with OpenXML

Brian Jones (a Microsoft employee and program manager of Office) has posted a response to an article posted by Rob Weir (an IBM employee and proponent of ODF) concerning the true openness of the OpenXML specification.

The ODF crowd continues to try to point out flaws in OpenXML. Is it out of the goodness of their hearts that they are "warning" everyone about it? Or are they scared it might challenge ODF? Funny that the only "no" vote for ECMA approval was by IBM. When all you can talk about is the evils of the other guy's product, what does that say?

Brian Jones insists that Open XML and ODF can co-exist, and should co-exist. It should be interesting to see whether this becomes an all-out format war.

I, for one, am excited about OpenXML for the simple fact that Office documents (of which there are billions) will be much easier to work with than they were previously, with a readily available specification with which to guide you. Doesn't seem so bad to me.

-Chris

How Open is OpenXML?

This article is an interesting look into the Microsoft Office OpenXML standard, and how it isn't quite as "open" as it appears.

-Sean

Microsoft XPS and Office Open XML - So you think you know women...

So you think you know women....

After being married for almost 20 years you tell younger guys how you know about women. How they think, what they want and why they want it. Suddenly something comes along and you find your right back where you started. You don't really know women at all.

Enter Microsoft. Office 2007 products will ship all new file formats for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. These will be XML-based with open specifications. Open in the sense they will be well documented. The documents are freely available to the public and Microsoft will open grant rights to read and write the format royalty-free.

The XML makes sense and the openness comes from customer demand and the infamous State of Massachusetts requirements for open formats. OK fine. Are you still with me? I had thought this was the new "Metro" or XPS XML paper specification. But no. Office 2007 utilizes another XML format. The Office Open XML format. Not to be confused with the Open Document format for Office applications (Open Source and not from Microsoft). This will be the new default format for reading and writing Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Other Microsoft products will follow suit. You can still read and write the existing file formats and these can be changed to be the default by the individual users or can be installed as such. All products will be enabled to write and read the XPS format with a downloadable plug-in. A plug-in also exists to enable Office 2003 to use the new XPS formats.

Wait, its not over yet. Adobe is slated to be shipping a new XML based PDF format to replace the current PDF file format. This is supposed to be supported in the next version of Adobe Acrobat.

Where are we now? Where do we go from here. Why XPS? Why two formats and not roll all features into one format? As the head of engineering for Snowbound Software, who sells Imaging SDK, Imaging Toolkit, and Viewing Application products, I find myself at a loss for direction. What format would you implement and when to start?

To recap:

XPS - XML paper specification. Designed as a PDF competitor.
Office Open XML - New native file format for Office 2007. Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Open Document format for office applications - The document format for the open source Open Office suit of applications.
XML PDF - From Adobe to create an XML replacement for PDF.

So you think know women.............

** Note: in all fairness this could have been written so you think you know men...

-Jim

Adobe Considers Lawsuit Over XML Paper Specification (XPS)

Adobe's CEO has not ruled out a lawsuit against Microsoft for the XML Paper Specification (XPS) that they are rolling out with Vista and Office 2007.  Before it gets to the courts, however, Adobe is hoping that the European Union will put a stop to Microsoft's "PDF Killer".

-Sean

File Formats, Alliances and Politics

Politics, what is that?  We are just plain-old imaging folk, aren't we?

Whatever happened to the good old debates of FlashPix vs. JPEG and TIFF?

Well, just after the State of Massachusetts had a hearing on the decision to switch to the Open Document format, Microsoft announced that it will support PDF saving. Is this a coincidence or is old Billy Boy listening?

http://www.eweek.com/category2/0,1874,1866726,00.asp?kc=ewnws100405dtx1k0000599

Microsoft has always hated Adobe and PDF, haven't they?  PDF is a great format for archiving since the specification is open, but try and do it (the PDF 1.5 spec is 1,172 pages). Microsoft hasn't had a long history of doing things to benefit its customers.

Then, a few weeks later, the State Senate of Massachusetts announces a bill to prohibit the I.T. department from standardizing on file formats unless further reviewed by a larger board. Was this Billy's doing again?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2110

About the same time Google announces an alliance with Sun Microsoft systems to support the Star office suit, which also supports the Open Document formats. Remember the cold war and Ronnie Reagan? - "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1866536,00.asp?kc=ewnws100405dtx1k0000599

Wow, this is a lot to digest. 

Why can't we all just go back to using WordStar and TIFF? (Do you remember WordStar? Man you're dating yourself).

-Jim

Mass Ousting of Microsoft

Holy file format Batman, the State of Massachusetts has mandated that by Jan 1, 2007 all personnel will be required to use office software (word processors, spreadsheets and presentations) that by default saves to an open file format standard. Namely the Open Document format for Office Applications, also called OASIS. There is a small mention of an XML based PDF format. Looks like the work of the Riddler, Boy Wonder. Which Riddler? The State of Massachusetts or some software company?

What the great State of Massachusetts is saying that they would like to standardize on an open file format and not be tied to a proprietary file format.  What is open?

Specifications publicly available.
No legal encumbrance.
Maintained by a committee.
(** As defined by the State of Massachusetts)

Sounds like a good idea but they are essentially throwing out Microsoft for the short term. Unless Microsoft starts saving to this new format which, I doubt they would do. But do you now need to convert Word and Excel and PDF to the OASIS format?  Is this a really bad and costly move? The State argues that since they are presently running Windows 2000 (which the newer versions of Microsoft Office will not run on). They would have to install new operating systems and train employees anyway.

Microsoft, as part of the upcoming Longhorn (Now called Vista) and new office suite has created a new file format for office applications called Metro. I would assume this will be the default if not the only format for saving. When this happens, the State of Massachusetts will be required to upgrade all Microsoft Office applications anyway. Since old versions would not read in this new format.

So are they really this smart to see what’s coming or just trying to stick it to Microsoft?

The argument, which I like, is that in the future, even if there were no software available which supported the State's new adopted file format, a specification would still be in the public domain to document the file format, thus allowing conversion. By using a proprietary format all states documents might no longer be readable or even convertible.

*** Is this really significant??!!! One state (by far not the largest) standardizing on a Non-Microsoft format and non-Microsoft software? Well at a recent meeting of the Mass Software council, an open forum was held to discuss the latest Mandate by the State.  On hand were Secretary of Administration and Finance Eric Kriss, Dan Bricklin, Jim Palo (File format expert), and some others from obscure no name companies like:

Adobe
Microsoft
Sun
IBM
more.....

If you ever watch King of the Cage then you would have loved the fight for the microphone between Microsoft and IBM. The major issue is if other states, other countries and or the Federal Government will follow suit. An IBM representative (who had a well thought out agenda in front of him) stated he had discussed the issue of open file formats and only software that supported them with 24 different countries. Well, caped wonder, we will have to see how this one plays out.

Stay tuned next week.
Same Bat time.
Same Bat channel.

-Jim

JBIG2 Compression

JBIG2 how do I love thee, let me count the ways. Why do I love JBIG2 so much? 

Well lets start out by backtracking a little. After 23 years in the imaging business I have seen a number of new file formats and compression algorithms. Remember FlashPix?  (just thought I'd throw that in for laughs) They are announced with all kinds of incredible claims like100 times better than JPEG or Group 4. Whether true or not (rarely true), they are in most cases a proprietary file format owned by one company. Therefore viewers are hard to find and wide spread adoption is rare. Also if the one single source goes out of business you have no way of converting the images you are left with.

Enter JBIG2. JBIG2 an ISO standard T.84 and a specification is publicly available. So what, you say.  Here's the best part. JBIG2 is supported by PDF as a compression filter. This means you can create a JBIG2 compressed PDF file and any one with Adobe Acrobat 5.0 or greater can view the image. So most desktops already have a JBIG2 viewer installed.

Oh yeah by the way it does compress well. I have found JBIG2 to compress 7 times better than Group 4 compression. An image uncompressed 1 meg was compressed in Tiff group 4 to 82k. JBIG2 was able to compress down to 12k.

If you must know JBIG2 creates a symbol table. Usually text characters in the image. After the table is built redundant symbols can be eliminated. This can be done be creating a tolerance for lossy compression or exact for lossless compression.

-Jim

JPEG2000 Compression

JPEG2000 oh where oh where have you been. The JPEG2000 specification, as the name denotes, has been released for 5 years now, but the use of this compression is rare. Why? Lets first step back.  JPEG2000 does work and work well. It can compress on the order of 3 - 5 times better than ANSI base line JPEG. The images are much clearer. Due to the nature of the algorithm you don't get the "blockiness" type attributes as in JPEG for higher compressed images. The spec also contains other levels that allow for mixed content. Mixed content are images types with text and or color images and graphics. Also there exists a lossless mode. So if its so great why has it not gone mainstream yet. Well this is what blogs are for, my opinion.

When JPEG hit there did not exist any good color compression. LZW or Flate (.zip or PNG) compression only yielded about 2 - 3 to one compression. There was truly a need for good mainstream color and gray scale compression. The independent JPEG group was formed and provided free source code. This code was portable to most other platforms. The browsers quickly adopted JPEG. Soon every desktop had a JPEG viewer. Other companies could easily integrate JPEG compression and decompression due to the free source code.

JPEG2000 on the other hand has not been adopted in Internet Explorer or any of the other browsers (as far as I know?). There currently exists no JPEG2000 free source. Mass storage is cheap and gets cheaper every year. JPEG2000 viewers are far and few between. They may exist but you don't get a free one with Windows operating systems, Macintosh or Unix. 

The integration of JPEG2000 by the browsers and free reference source code could spur rapid adoption but is the current JPEG already good enough? Maybe for mass storage but for internet download times JPEG2000 would be nice.

So what do you think? Do we need JPEG2000. Is better compression needed?

-Jim