Microsoft Embracing Open Source?

Our local paper in Chennai, The Hindu is reporting from an interview in Karnataka with Aztecsoft’s Vice President for the Bangalore Delivery Centre, Ravi Bala, that Microsfoft is offering a tool to help users convert their files to the `free-and-open’ standard known as Open Document Format (ODF). On Friday, Microsoft placed in the public domain, a converter between its proprietary Office Open XML (for eXtended Markup Language) format and ODF standard adopted by all Open Source software makers including the rival OpenOffice.org suite created by Sun Microsystems.

Well there had to be a catch, and the first one is that the free download is limited to “Word” documents created by using Microsoft’s Office 2007 version.

Microsoft has promised that by year-end it will be beefed up with offerings for converting Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations as well — and what’s more, there will be upgrade packs for users of older versions of Office.

But given that this whole initiative is prompted by the tough stance that the EU antitrust regulators have taken, more must be on the way.

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