Word News & Articles

 Assuming Microsoft accepts it has no tablet presence and won't for some time, then it needs to get Office to as many tablet users as possible to keep one toe in a booming market. So, why not bring a new Office to the iPad?

Ah, numbers. The universal language. 500 million is an awful lot no matter where you go or what’s in question; hence, we think it’s safe to say that an awful lot of people use Microsoft Office—with totally appropriate italics for emphasis and everything.

The ol' suite is most certainly a seasoned player, which, so far, has proved its ability to keep up with the changing times. Lucky for Microsoft, especially considering how much the way in which we work has changed since the 2007. As Microsoft gears up for the Office 2010 release, we wonder, will it be another hit, or will half a billion people be disappointed? Let’s take a look at the breadcrumbs they’ve dropped so far.

Content solutions provider, Mark Logic (news, site) has secured US$ 12.5 million in further venture capital funding to help expand sales and development of its XML server and other products.

Another new coupling in the Content Management industry has just been announced. This time it's between IBM (news, site) and Quark, a vendor of publishing software. This partnership, they say, will see the adaptation of XML across entire enterprises by integrating Quark XML Author in the IBM FileNet Content Manager.

This new integration is designed to eliminate existing problems surrounding the creation of enterprise-wide DITA-based XML and allow any user working in Microsoft Word to author content that can be used and reused in multiple channels or formats.

Even the ‘Feds’ are getting in on the SharePoint act. Well, maybe not directly as yet, but the regulation of drugs and medical appliances by the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has become so complicated and the documentation involved so stringent, that NextDocs has had to produce a major upgrade to its MOSS-based software suite.

Version 3.5 of the NextDocs Regulatory Document Management(RDM) system includes an entirely new module for managing clinical documents as well as new features that enhance users’ ability to easily manage regulated content.

Microsoft just can’t get any peace. With Google Apps eroding the need to own a copy of Microsoft Office, and Zoho improving where Apps leaves off, the Word/Excel monopoly may be fast seeing sundown.

And the end may be sooner than expected, now that Adobe’s announced it’s going to purchase Virtual Ubiquity, the company that produces an offering called Buzzword.

In English this time: IBM has joined OpenOffice.org, reportedly to “collaborate on software development for the Open Document Format (ODF), an ISO standard that governs the creation, storage, and exchange of documents,” says Mark Long of newsfactor.com.

IBM will start by sharing the code it’s been developing for its Lotus Notes software, including certain accessibility fixes that may allegedly help OpenOffice “reach parity” with Microsoft’s current offering for disabled workers via Office.

For dedicated content builders who’ve always wanted to compare the kettle to the pot, Sydney-based DocsCorp releases compareDocs, an enhancement to the pdfDocs Solutions Suite.