NEW DELHI, INDIA: Underlining the increasing usage of Open XML formats in application development, Intrasphere Technologies, a leading life sciences consulting firm; and MS Technology, a digital imaging & document management solutions company, have developed solutions specific to customer needs based on Open XML schemas.

Developers in Intrasphere used Open XML to develop PharmaCM – which supports structured content management and can be configured to support clinical trial registries and drug labeling.

Elaborating on the reasons for using Open XML formats for its solution, Vinay Khubchandani, Lead Architect for Intrasphere Technologies said “Open XML is a self describing XML format that allows easy conversion to other formats including other XML formats. It’s great because it helps us embed our custom XML formats along with custom metadata inside the Open XML document. And being able to edit an Open XML document right inside word-processing environment beats everything. Open XML cuts development time by at least 50 percent - it gives us so many more options to achieve the required functionality in the most optimum way”.

MS Technology, a software development company specializing in imaging and image-processing technology, similarly responded to customer demands for a platform independent document format.

The company is headquartered in the US, with most of its operations taking place in India – and the solution being developed by 22 Indian developers and testers in 45 days. The developers incorporated support for Open XML into its viewer products, its modular nature allowing storing everything that contributes to document creation and defines a document in individual files.

MS Technology also based the new file format container on the compressed .zip file format to reduce storage demands. All this has resulted in the company providing its customers better handling of corrupted files, reduced storage requirements, and increased choice. MS Technology has benefited directly too, given the time and cost savings with access to standardized specifications and easy-to-use XML schemas.

Tarun Kumar, Director, MS Technology adds, “We’ve reduced the amount of time spent on resolving formatting issues by 70 percent – and seen commensurate cost savings. There are other major benefits for our customers: With Open XML, you can view the bulk of a corrupted file, and that makes a big difference. Other formats, such as Open Document Format, can’t defend against data loss the same way”.

Commenting on the usage of Open XML, Sanjay Manchanda, Director, Microsoft Business Division, said, “Developers across the world today are using Open XML in a variety of diverse and innovative solutions. In India too, companies like MS Technology and Intrasphere, with their innovative products based on Open XML, are heralding a new trend that will have a positive impact on computing in the future”.