Microsoft on Wednesday quoted that they will be providing ODF support in the next version of MS Office.Which means that without adding any special software to MS Office, users will be able to open documents sent to them in the open source Open Document Format (ODF), the company said. As well, users will be able to edit and save documents in that format.
“Microsoft is going to be providing support for three new file formats directly in the Office product,” said Erich Anderson, vice president and general counsel for Europe, in a telephone interview.Microsoft said it will add support for ODF version 1.1 when it updates its Office 2007 product some time next year with “service pack 2.”In addition to ODF, Microsoft will also support Adobe’s popular PDF fixed format and Microsoft’s competitor to PDF, known as XPS.
Thomas Vinje in Brussels, a lawyer who has represented clients opposed to Microsoft, said the announcement was meaningless unless Microsoft made ODF the default standard when people opened office.If ODF is not the standard its presence “won’t matter because the vast majority will not use it. That was the experience in the U.S. case,” he said, referring to a case which found Microsoft in violation of the Sherman antitrust act.
Carlo Piana, a lawyer in Milan who represents clients who make open source software, called Microsoft’s approach “too little, too late.”
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