Apple Beats Microsoft at its Own Open XML Game

Apple Inc.’s release of iWork ‘08 this week is “embarrassing,” an analyst said Friday, not for its maker, but for Apple’s rival, Microsoft Corp. Tuesday, Apple rolled out a refreshed iWork that added a spreadsheet, dubbed Numbers, to the earlier mix of a word processor/page layout Pages and presentation maker Keynote. But it was iWork’s ability to handle the Open XML file format — the new native format for Microsoft’s own Office 2007 application suite — that Michael Gartenberg of JupiterResearch talked about. Read more.