Monday, May 15, 2006

Office 12 beta likes Google Calendar

With the help of a product developer within Microsoft, I've been able to open iCal invitations, generated by a beta release of Office 12, within Google Calendar. But our similar attempts to open these invitations within Apple's iCal have been unsuccessful. The ball may end up in Apple's court. This isn't the first time I've heard that Apple's implementation of iCal is a bit odd. But it is the first time I've ever heard of Apple iCal not opening an .ics file. It brings to mind the old adage, "Be conversative in what you write, and liberal in what you read." Recently I read of a Microsoft official stressing the importance of bilaterial interoperability agreements as being at least as important than supporting standards. If the Office 12 problems persist, such an agreement between Apple and Microsoft may be in order.

As for myself, I'm still eager to route around Outlook. How will Windows Mobile support Windows Vista Calendar? And, more importantly, will Windows Vista Calendar run on Windows XP, like so many other pieces of Vista?

2 comments:

Scott Mace said...

Troy,

I didn't test that, but I'm already able to open iCal invitations in Outlook 2003, so it should still work the same way. Outlook 2007 also supports CalDAV which hould allow it to subscribe to Google Calendars, as well as import. But we'll see.

bcg said...

It is very possible - go here:

http://officebeta.iponet.net/client/helppreview.aspx?AssetID=HA101674951033&QueryID=UKLA4rJNb0&respos=1&rt=2&ns=OUTLOOK&lcid=2057&pid=CH100776881033

It works very nicely, except I can't get it to allow me to add appointments on my PC.