Lag in Mac Office 2007 Converters Delivery--Redux

Yesterday, we noted that the Mac converters for Windows Office 2007 XML files, the default format for Office 2007's Word, Excel and PowerPoint, will be produced by Microsoft's Mac BU but they will be about 3 months after the official release of Office 2007 to the general public even though there are Windows converters of the same file formats already, albeit beta versions. We stated that with all the explanations so far we still couldn't understand why the lag.

Microsoft Mac BU's Rick Schaut has written in his blog the definitive explanation of why the Mac converters for the Office 2007 XML files lag the Windows converters. Okay, it does make sense although we have to take his word for many factors in the explanation because we haven't done any real heavy software development since FORTRAN IV was the language--dates us pretty badly, no? Anyway, a 3-month lag isn't that bad.

That said, given some feedback that we received from yesterday's article, it seems the real sin here is that Microsoft made the new XML file format for Office 2007 applications the default format. We heard from people in academia where they are already using Office 2007 that the new XML file format is causing havoc in their Windows world with files showing up all over the place that people can not open because they are still using Office 2003 or earlier, don't know that there are converters and the converters are not bug free. Fortunately for Microsoft they have a monopoly with Office so while Office 2007 is a disaster in some places, it's not a fatal one.

The default file format selection probably has nothing to do with the Mac BU so we're ready to cut them the necessary slack. Anyway, a 3-month lag isn't that bad. And we wonder how fast Apple's Pages and Keynote will get Word 2007 and PowerPoint 2007 converters. [Bill Fox]