Microsoft Takes Concrete Steps to Foster Interoperability Among File Formats: Company encourages greater transparency in the pursuit of interoperability by publishing ODF and Open XML implementation notes.

See the full press release for more details.  It will be interesting to see if other vendors follow Microsoft’s lead in this context.

To help foster interoperability among office productivity applications, Microsoft Corp. today published documentation detailing its implementation of OASIS Open Document Format (ODF) version 1.1 support in Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2, currently in beta and scheduled for release next year. Similarly detailed notes about the company’s implementation of Open XML (Ecma 376 Edition 1) in Office will follow in the coming weeks.

These implementation notes offer a comprehensive guide on how Microsoft is implementing ODF and Open XML within its flagship Microsoft Office suite. The notes, available at no charge on the Document Interoperability Initiative (DII) site, http://www.documentinteropinitiative.org, will be useful to developers seeking to enhance the interoperability of their solutions with Microsoft products.

Microsoft Takes Concrete Steps to Foster Interoperability Among File Formats: Company encourages greater transparency in the pursuit of interoperability by publishing ODF and Open XML implementation notes.