Microsoft to Support ODF via Plug-In

Apache4857 writes "It appears that Microsoft has finally caved. BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft is sponsoring an open source project to enable conversion between Open XML in Office 2007 and OpenDocument formats. The project, hosted on Sourceforge.net, made its initial release today. The Word 2007 conversion utility is expected to ship ship by the end of 2006, and similarly conversion utilities for Excel and PowerPoint are expected early next year." See the announcement in Brian Jones' blog (Jones is the Microsoft program manager responsible for Office file formats).

And they also have a time machine!

[Anonymous Coward]

From the project home page [sourceforge.net]:

In September 2006, Clever Age released an Open Source project that allowed to open OpenOffice.org documents (SXW files) in Word 2003.

September 2006, sure...

It was out love that did it!

[elrous0]

A spokesperson for Microsoft was quoted as saying "Well...we weren't going to do it at first. But then the gang over at /. asked us too, and we just can't say no to those guys after all the love they've shown us in the past."

-Eric

I've had it with Microsoft

[Live_in_Dayton]

If they do this, I'm not going to buy Office 2007. I don't want my office "productivity" suite cluttered up with a lot of extra options on how to do things. I want Microsoft to tell me! Long live .doc, the one true format.

Obligatory Russian Reverse

[gnarlin]

In Soviet Russia Microsoft suppor.... Oh, wait!?

I, for one...

[Lord of Hyphens]

welcome our BSD-using ODF plugin overlords...

Well, I would if I wasn't already using OpenOffice.

Covenant Not to Sue

[MrCopilot]

Open XML Formats Are for Everyone to Use We've made the Open XML file formats available for everyone to use. The file formats are simple standards-based XML text and are readable by a broad range of XML authoring and editing tools. We've applied a new intellectual property sharing approach to the file formats, which includes a Covenant Not To Sue (CNS) provision to assure software developers that they can use the file formats for free and without financial or intellectual property consideration toward Microsoft. We've also submitted the file formats along with other industry leaders for continued development and management by the Ecma International standards organization.

We hope and expect that millions of third-party developers around the world will build solutions using the Open XML file formats. Already, hundreds of thousands of developers are working with the XML capabilities of Microsoft Office. Any developer may use or join the OpenXMLDeveloper.org community to receive the latest information and participate in active code-sharing and experience-sharing opportunities.

Come join the covenant, Be one with the covenant. Or we Will Sue your ass.

Re:And the reason was ...

[Atzanteol]

Belium and Massachusetts ... Sound[sic] like Europe has become the fighter of freedom of the people.

Since when did Massachusetts join the EU?