Office's intriguing take on XML is pure Microsoft
eWeek | at | by Mike
Sometime around this summer, Microsoft will release the 2003 version of its Office productivity suite, with hopes that companies and individuals will find enough value in it to undertake the upgrade. What most impressed me about Office 2003, the Beta 2 release of which we reviewed in this week's issue, is the way that Office embraces XML, and does so-thanks to its support for user-defined XML schema-in an open-ended, user-controlled way.
Most of what sets Office 2003 apart from previous versions relates to the way that Office documents can serve as the front-end pieces to data-rich back-end components, and in every case, the back-end options that Office extends to users are those that carry the Microsoft brand-and per-seat license fee.