Microsoft to Support ODF?
OpenOffice.org issued a press release in response to Microsoft’s announcement of an ODF-MSXML translator:
“OpenOffice.org welcomes the news that Microsoft has bowed to pressure from the marketplace, which is demanding Microsoft adopt ISO 26300 Open Document Format (ODF) as its native file format for all its Office products. Microsoft’s announcement of official support for a proposed ODF converter is the first step towards meeting that demand, and will give users of its Office software partial access to the standard.”
It appears that Microsoft will be releasing an open source component (downloaded separately, not included with MS Office) to handle the translations. Now we have to see how difficult and inconvenient they will make it, in their effort to dissuade potential users. (Though, if it is truly open source, the community can come in and fix MS’ deliberate errors in the program…)
The other big question is whether their support of ODF will be complete and honest, or whether they’ll try to undermine it through “embrace, extend, extinguish” as they have done with numerous standards in the past. On this point too, I remain highly skeptical.