Microsoft promises ODF, OOXML interoperability

By Stuart Corner
Sunday, 09 March 2008 13:56

Open Source

In the wake of the ISO rejecting Microsoft's OOXML document format as an international standard, Microsoft has launched its Document Interoperability Initiative pledging to work with industry to ensure its document formats remain interchangeable with industry standards. Microsoft described the move as "an important step in Microsoft's commitment to implement a set of strategic changes in its technology and business practices to expand interoperability through the implementation of its interoperability principles."

Microsoft is under intense pressure from large users, particularly government bodies, to make its Office document formats open: They fear that the vast archive of important documents created over the years in different versions of Microsoft Office will result in them being held hostage by Microsoft as the only organisation able to provide the software to read them.

The initiative was launched at in Cambridge Massachusetts, with a number of independent software vendors including Novell, Mark Logic, Quickoffice, DataViz and Nuance Communications. Microsoft said a 'lab' would be held "to test interoperability between existing implementations of Microsoft Office Open XML Formats and the Open Document Format (ODF) on a variety of platforms and devices including Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Linux and Windows Mobile."

Additional Microsoft-sponsored document interoperability events are currently planned in Seoul, Korea and in Berlin, Germany, in early April. Microsoft said they would include a set of integrated round table discussions between vendors about what steps should be taken to promote real-world interoperability between document format implementations in the marketplace. "This will include discussions about how testing can be refined, how best to develop conformance testing suites for popular formats, and how to create document templates that are optimised for interoperability between different format implementations."

Microsoft also announced the 1.1 release of a translator between ODF and Open XML for Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet) and Microsoft PowerPoint (presentation) applications. This is the result of an ongoing open source project for which Microsoft announced its support in July 2006. Microsoft says it has committed to support future releases of the translator that will take advantage of the improvements in Microsoft Office converter APIs announced as part of the interoperability principles on February 21 to provide a better integrated experience for customers to open and save ODF files. CONTINUED