Microsoft discloses details of its implementation of ODF

30th December 2008

The company Microsoft published a detailed description of its approach to support the format of ODF (Open Document Format) in Office applications. For the first time, the official support of this open format, adopted as the international ISO standard, should appear in the set of Updates SP2 (Service Pack 2) to MS Office 2007.
To reveal all the details of implementing ODF to developers, Microsoft opened the whole Web site where anyone can learn how Microsoft products, including Word, will from ODF docs, and other interesting details. At first this kind of documentation seems unnecessary, but for many developers it can become an invaluable source of information to write their own add-ons. Then, Microsoft is planning very soon to reveal the mechanism of support of their own format, adopted as the standard ISO - Open XML.
At the moment, implementing the ODF standard is very different in the products of various manufacturers. The initiative of Microsoft can lead to a single implementation for the formats of Open XML and ODF.
Eventually the Microsoft is going to establish a benchmark test for various realizations of the formats Open XML and ODF, similar to the Acid test.