Microsoft file format pot calls file format kettle black

MICROSOFT IS SHEDDING digital crocodile tears and warning of a data "dark age" ahead because we can't read old and proprietary file formats.

Oh great. Microsoft has changed the goalposts dozens of times in dozens of software applications since we first started sampling its software in the mid-1980s by introducing "innovations" which mean that even if you upgrade your software you don't necessarily get to port your apps or your documents.

UK Microsoft head Gordon Frazer is apparently backing the CEO of the UK National Archives. Natalie Ceeney, for it is she, wants someone to come up with a programme to read old file formats.

And Microsoft is going to help her. As she rightly said, according to a BBC story, digital information should "be as resilient as paper".

Frazer reckons Open XML is the answer to future archivists' dreams and worries. He told the Beeb that inside the IT industry the "prevailing trend was for proprietary file formats". Er, yes, Gordon. And which particular Vole are you thinking of? µ

L'INQ
BBC story

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