AFP - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Friday the eyes of the world were now on Myanmar after pushing the secretive military regime to accept a major relief effort for survivors of the cyclone disaster.

AP - Myanmar's ruling junta said Friday it will let foreign aid workers and commercial ships help survivors in the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy Delta, but refused to relent on accepting aid from U.S., French and British military ships.

Microsoft's plan to include ODF (OpenDocument Format) support in its Office suite next year reflects continued challenges for the OOXML (Open Office XML) file format as the industry moves ahead with adopting ODF and sorts out OOXML's troubles.

Though OOXML was approved by the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) on April 1, it continues to face impediments to widespread adoption. On Friday, it was revealed that South Africa is appealing ISO  approval of the standard. And earlier this week, New York state officially promoted ODF as a standard file format based on customer demand as it launched a new initiative for technology openness and open standards.

"If all that proprietary vendors are waiting for before they directly support ODF is a 'broad based customer request' then they should be aware that such a demand already exists in New York State," according to the report, which has been posted online.

Even Microsoft has delayed full support of the current OOXML specification, yet will support ODF in Office in a service pack to be released early next year, a move the company announced Wednesday. Office will not natively support the current OOXML specification until its next version code-named Office 14, a release date for which has not been announced.

Jay Lyman, an analyst with The 451 Group, said Microsoft coming out in favor of supporting ODF first shows that Microsoft, "is being steered toward greater support for open source, open standards, and interoperability" by customers, "which in this case are primarily governments in the U.S. and around the world."

While OOXML will certainly be adopted and used in the future, ODF has a head start because it was approved by the ISO first and is not plagued by lingering questions or doubts about its merit as an international standard.

"Governments that must move now on their format plans are seeing benefits in ODF, which is approved, backed by a number of large vendors and being adopted around the globe," Lyman said.

The decision to appeal casts doubt on OOXML as a viable alternative to the already approved ODF, said Andrew Updegrove, an open-source advocate and attorney with Gesmer Updegrove in Boston. "No one can now say, until this is resolved, that OOXML 'is a global standard,'" he said.

Updegrove also noted that because Microsoft is delaying Office support for OOXML, there is reason to take the appeal very seriously because there is no sense of urgency around resolving it and deploying the format in the near term.

Microsoft declined to comment on South Africa's appeal, saying only that the ISO and the IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) have a clear process for evaluating and resolving appeals and that the issue remains between them and the South African standards body. The company also promoted its moves toward interoperability in a statement through its public relations firm.

As for New York's decision to promote ODF, Jason Matusow, senior director of interoperability at Microsoft, noted in an e-mail that in the New York study the state calls for technology to be considered on a "value-for-money" basis and that openness is just one consideration among many.

He also said that New York officials recommend that the state legislature "not mandate in statute the use of any specific document creation and preservation technology," implying that it's likely the state will not officially favor ODF over any other file format.

Peter Sayer in Paris contributed to this report.

It felt like all Microsoft, all the time this week. CEO Steve Ballmer was attacked by an egg-throwing Hungarian, the company said it will support ODF and PDF in Office next year, and it started the week by pitching another deal to Yahoo that involves buying assets and not the entire works. (Note to Microsoft: Take a weekend off already!)

[ Video: Catch up on the top stories of the week with the World Tech Update ]

1. Update: Microsoft to support ODF, PDF in Office next year and All eyes on how Microsoft pulls off ODF support: Microsoft is adding support for ODF (Open Document Format) and Adobe Systems' PDF (Portable Document Format) to Office next year in a service pack. Users will be able to save documents as ODF, PDF and XPS, as well as set ODF as the default file format. It's about time.

2. Yahoo postpones board meeting, director resigns: The Yahoo board's annual meeting was pushed back a few weeks until the end of July when all of the director seats will be up for re-election. Director Edward Kozel resigned from the board, which investor Carl Icahn hopes to replace with a slate of 10 candidates he's assembled. The meeting was to have been July 3; it's expected Yahoo will use the extra time to work through particulars of being acquired by Microsoft.

3. Microsoft puts new Yahoo deal on the table and Analysts: Microsoft likely eyeing Yahoo search assets: Microsoft proposed buying an unspecified part of Yahoo. Early bets were that the unspecified part involves search advertising. By week's end, with word that Yahoo had postponed its annual meeting, talk turned back to the likelihood of a full acquisition.

[ For the complete saga of Microsoft's bid to take over Yahoo, check out InfoWorld's special report ]

4. Facebook provides redesign details: It seemed like it would take an act of Congress to get any details, but Facebook finally let loose with particulars of its member-profile pages redesign. Profiles will consist of tabbed subpages for the subscriber's "activity feed," photos, personal information and applications. The aim is a return to a streamlined look.

5. 'Patentgate' one year later: Microsoft against the open-source world: One year ago, Microsoft claimed Linux and other open-source software violated 235 of its patents and started demanding royalty payments. The company has declined to say exactly what patents are being violated, but it is trying to use the alleged violations as leverage against open-source competitors. At the same time, Microsoft has opened up many of its APIs, meaning it is both embracing and chastizing open source, leaving many in the open-source community tired of the company's good cop/bad cop routine.

6. Rising energy costs may usher in workplace changes: Rising gas prices are affecting company policies regarding telecommuting as well as leaving a mark on the IT job market overall. Workers are less likely to be willing to drive longer distances for work, because of rising costs. Some can shift to mass transport, while others are opting to work closer to home, limiting the talent pool geographically.

7. Microsoft's Ballmer attacked by egg-tosser: Steve Ballmer ducked behind a lectern when a student at Corvinus University of Budapest took to shouting and hurling eggs at the Microsoft CEO. The student wore a shirt that said "Microsoft = Corruption" in large block letters on the back. He rose from his seat seconds after Ballmer began a speech, shouted and then threw three eggs. Ballmer took cover as the first one whizzed by. He later joked that he was worried about keeping his suit clean because egg doesn't come off easily.

8. AT&T to complete 3G network by next month: AT&T is set to be the first U.S. carrier to fully deploy HSPA technology over its network when it completes its 3G overhaul next month. Of course, customers will need 3G-enabled devices to take advantage of the upgrade, and considering AT&T's relationship with Apple as the exclusive network for the iPhone, many feel as though the 3G update presages the arrival of a 3G iPhone.

9. Codie awards go to Red Hat, Adobe, Salesforce.com: Yes, even the Software & Information Industry Association has an awards program. While big names like Red Hat, Adobe, and Salesforce took home some of the prizes, many lesser-known companies were also winners, showcasing the depth of the industry and illustrating that great coding and products can come from any company, no matter what size.

10. IBM Rational IDE tops survey: A recent survey by Evans Data found that users of IBM's Rational IDE were the most satisfied with their development platform. While Rational topped the survey in overall satisfaction, Visual Studio, Delphi, Adobe Creative Suite, Sun Studio, and JDeveloper earned top honors in some of the individual categories.

AP - As consumers began hitting the road Friday for the Memorial Day weekend, they faced the sobering reality that it now costs $87 to fill a Ford Explorer SUV, up $14 from last year, and $72 to fill a mid-sized Honda Accord, up $12.

A benchmark test for rich internet application (RIA) frameworks claims Apple's OS X lags Microsoft's Windows XP on Intel when rendering HTML, being just over half as fast.…

Reuters - China has found what it termed 50 "hazardous sources of radiation" due to last week's earthquake, a senior official said on Friday, although he insisted the situation was under control.

IBM will repay $13 million to Massachusetts for performance management software its subsidiary, Cognos, sold to the state in August 2007, according to an agreement reached this week.

The deal came under scrutiny last year following allegations the procurement process had been rushed to favor Cognos.

IBM declined to comment beyond a brief statement confirming it will give back the money and that the state will return the software. The statement also noted that Cognos struck the deal before IBM acquired it.

An IBM spokesman, Chris Andrews, refused to provide documentation pertaining to the agreement, as did Governor Deval Patrick's office, which issued a similar statement.

Massachusetts House Speaker Sal DiMasi has been at the center of a political firestorm over the controversy, with allegations flying over his connections to Cognos. The Boston Globe reported that Cognos was a sponsor of a memorial golf tournament DiMasi helped organize and that a DiMasi friend served as a lobbyist for the vendor.

DiMasi has adamantly denied any wrongdoing. His office declined to comment on Friday.

However, a March report by state Inspector General Gregory Sullivan's office provides a time line of an investigation the agency conducted into the software deal.

The inspector general began scrutinizing the procurement following a tip from a whistleblower, as well as a December request from Patrick's administration, according to Jack McCarthy, a spokesman for Sullivan's office.

"They accomplished what we asked them to do, it appears, to get the money back from a flawed procurement process," McCarthy said. "It's nice to know IBM recognized the flaws in the process and did the right thing for Massachusetts. We're also happy the Patrick administration hung tough and followed through."

The report does not mention DiMasi but describes a number of alleged flaws in the way the Cognos pact was formed.

For one, the state's Information Technology Division did not widely advertise the fact it was looking for performance management software, according to the report.

Instead, "a staff member at ITD simply consulted a chart of leaders in performance management developed by the analytical firm Gartner Group and e-mailed the Request for Quotes to four companies identified as 'leaders.' "

Three vendors -- Cognos, Oracle and SAS -- responded to the e-mail, according to the report. ITD staffers developed a scoring sheet containing 104 criteria. The ITD team in charge never finished evaluating the vendors with the sheet, but at the time they stopped Cognos had the high score, with 69.39 points, followed by SAS with 57.38 and Oracle with 27.49, the report states.

The IG's investigation found that due to a typographical error in the spreadsheet's formula, the scores for all three vendors were flawed, with many points going uncounted.

The ITD procurement team never finalized or submitted the scoring document to the Patrick administration, and therefore the IG's office did not attempt to rework the calculations, according to the report.

Instead, after meeting with all three vendors the procurement team "unanimously felt that much more information had to be gathered because they did not adequately understand how various agencies and administrators would use performance management software," and recommended the procurement process be done over, the report states.

But on May 18, 2007, the acting CIO of ITD, Bethann Pepoli, told Henry Dormitzer, deputy to Patrick's secretary of administration and finance, Leslie Kirwan, that Cognos "was the best choice for performance management software procurement."

Dormitzer relayed the information to Kirwan, who subsequently signed an agreement to buy the software in August, the report states.

DiMasi allegedly met personally with Pepoli at some point to discuss the importance of performance management software, according to The Boston Globe. "The speaker and I never had a conversation about a vendor," Pepoli told the Globe. "I don't feel like my recommendation was influenced by any outside sources."

The ITD has "already approached us to help them go through the procurement process" as they once again seek to purchase performance management software," McCarthy said.

"It may not be Cognos' software," he noted.

On today's Gillmor Gang, David Glazer, Google director of engineering, said he expects Facebook and Google to make peace on integrating Friend Connect and Facebook Connect, but didn't want to give a time frame for a resolution.

AP - China's deadly earthquake may have saved the Beijing Olympics.

Nvidia in the past has jeered Intel's heavy investments in ray tracing as a successor of rasterization for graphics rendering — but it's always stopped short of dismissing the technology completely.…

Facebook is vulnerable to a cross site scripting flaw that leaves its users at risk from scripting attacks.…