Open XML links for 02-20-2008

Patrick Durusau speaks out again. I'm glad to see that Patrick Durusau is continuing to share publicly his thoughts on document formats. His latest post is on the topic of Co-Evolving OpenXML and OpenDocument Format, and Gray Knowlton has some interesting commentary about how Patrick's view compares to the public statements that others have made on this topic recently.

Biztalk and Open XML. BizTalk is a powerful tool for XML-based integration of disparate business processes, and the Open XML formats are a great fit for the types of workflow documents and reports that such processes often need to generate. Nick Heppleston has an interesting post about how to create Open XML documents from BizTalk, including straightforward code samples and hands-on implementation details. Thanks for sharing, Nick!

Why is Bob Sutor so scared of Rick Jelliffe? IBM's Bob Sutor is pleading with his readers to come up with a way to prevent Rick Jelliffe from participating in the BRM. Apparently the fact that Rick is the author of most of Australia's comments on DIS 29500 and a longtime participant in document-format standards in general makes him a bad choice for the BRM in Bob's view. My theory is that Bob saw Rick's question recently about whether fondue will be served at the anti-BRM, and is now deathly afraid that there may be somebody in the room who actually knows a bit about markup language standards. Sorry Bob, it looks like you'll need to re-write your presentation. Or not serve fondue.

Blogging and the BRM. Speaking of Rick, I noticed that he has publicly stated he won't be blogging about the BRM next week. I'll also not have anything to say here about what's going on in Geneva, for similar reasons: all members of the US delegation have been asked to refrain from making public statements about the content of the BRM, because we're representing the interests of the United States and not our respective business interests. I'm honored to be part of this process, and intend to follow the rules strictly, so the only thing you'll see from me about Geneva may be a pretty picture or two, if I get a chance to take any.