This post was written by Jeff Johnston

Microsoft has published technical documents describing how it built support for the rival Open Document Format within Office 2007. In addition, Microsoft has also given away notes on how it supported its own format, Office Open XML (OOXML). This information could be helpful for third-party software firms trying to build applications that work with Office 2007. Despite Microsoft’s long-standing argument that customers benefit from the tight integration between Office 2007, SharePoint and other Microsoft applications, the company was sincere about promoting interoperability with other formats and applications.

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This post was written by Melissa Chang

Microsoft is scheduled to release Microsoft Office 2007 Service Pack 2 in the first half of 2009. The company claims that the release will expand the list of document formats that it supports to include XML Paper Specification, PDF and Open Document Format (ODF).

Critics, however, are concerned about how “open” and “interoperable” Microsoft will actually be.

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