Some good news from Microsoft: Office 14 and the next Service Pack for Office 2007 will natively support the OpenDocument format (ODF) used by such software as OpenOffice.org and Google Docs. This open-source format has been adopted as a standard by recognized computing organizations and governments worldwide, succeededing to gain support in many areas that Microsoft’s OpenXML format has failed, which has put pressure on MS to respond with a similarly “open” format.
Cnet reports:
For a company that is happy to list a million reasons why Office is better than OpenOffice or Google Docs or other rivals, Microsoft sure is putting a tremendous amount of effort into working better with those products.
The next version of Office will natively support the OpenDocument format (as will the next service pack for Office 2007). As it is developing the next Office, Microsoft is also documenting every change it is making as part of its commitment to documenting all of Office’s various formats and protocols.
For those unable or unwilling to wait, you can download a plugin for MS Office that will add ODF support now. There is one from Sun (which I am given to understand is the version to be included in Office 2007 SP2 and later) or from the OpenOffice community.
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