Looks like Microsoft is taking it’s monopolistic, proprietary ways a step further: future versions of Word will produce documents that can only be read in Word because of digital rights management software. This is not a simple case of a proprietary file format, it’s an active piece of software that restricts you from opening the file in any other program. From C-Net:
The new rights management tools splinter to some extent the long-standing interoperability of Office formats. Until now, PC users have been able to count on opening and manipulating any document saved in Microsoft Word’s “.doc” format or Excel’s “.xls” in any compatible program, including older versions of Office and competing packages such as Sun Microsystems’ StarOffice and the open-source OpenOffice. But rights-protected documents created in Office 2003 can be manipulated only in Office 2003.
“There’s certainly a lock-in factor,” said Matt Rosoff, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. “Microsoft would love people to use Office and only Office. They made very sure that Office has these features that nobody else has.”
