How Microsoft Lost the Office File Format Battle

“Score one for the good guys: Last week, Microsoft announced
that not only would Office 2007 Service Pack 2 support the ODF
(Open Document Format) standard, but the productivity suite would
not offer support for the ISO standard version of Microsoft’s own
OOXML (Office Open XML) format until its next major version,
release date unknown.

“The move is sure to please some customers, particularly in
government agencies in the US and around the world, who have been
clamoring for an open, standards-based document format. For
Microsoft, however, it should be seen as nothing less than a
defeat, after a protracted and often bitter rivalry between the
competing document standards…”

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