When new technological advances are introduced in our space, we see them as both an opportunity and a challenge. Innovations in the marketplace inspire us, drive us, and sometimes test us.For example, when Microsoft introduced the Office 2007 suite, it inspired us to make some fundamental changes that ultimately open the door for further innovation down the road. Because many of our customers use SAVO for dynamic generation and customization of PowerPoint presentations and Word documents, supporting the 2007 format was a necessity.
The challenge
Before Microsoft released the 2007 suite, Office data was stored in a binary format. With the release of Office 2007, Microsoft switched to an Open XML format. By doing so they fundamentally changed the way the programs store data. If you use an Office 2007 product, you may have noticed the “x” that’s now at the end of the file extensions (e.g. .docx, .pptx, .xlx).
The opportunity
Not only is XML different, it’s also more open to other systems (such as SAVO), which actually makes it easier for us to work with. When we decided to support Office 2007, we knew we had the chance to take a different approach to the way we provide dynamic capabilities.
SAVO was one of the early adopters of Microsoft’s Open XML SDK. Doing so, we were able to not just support Office 2007 documents, but also to use the new format to expand SAVO’s capabilities. In fact, Microsoft’s own Open XML evangelist blogged about us due to the pioneering nature of this work. Microsoft went on to document our solution in a SAVO case study. We were able to go beyond the basics of supporting a new format and were able to incorporate true innovation into the product.
