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Gates says 'open' a favorite word

Ina Fried Former Staff writer, CNET News
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley.
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Ina Fried

Speaking at an Office developer conference, Bill Gates on Tuesday announced the formation of a new developer effort centered around the Open XML formats that are a part of Office 2007.

Gates noted that the new group, to be known as the Open XML Formats Developer Group brings together three of his favorite words--"open," "XML," and "developer."

"No organization is good unless you put 'open' " in there, Gates said. Microsoft has also submitted the Office 2007 file formats to European standards body ECMA.

Some in the industry and in government have been pushing for a different "open"--the OpenDocument format. However, Microsoft noted that 39 companies have signed up for the new developer group, including Intel, Apple and Toshiba.