Microsoft wants to build support for three open formats into Office 2007. According to News.com, the second service pack for the office productivity suite will introduce native support for Adobe's PDF, the Open Document Format (ODF), and Microsoft's own XML Paper Specification (XPS).
Office 2007 SP2 won't come out until some time in the first half of 2009, so users will have to rely on existing Office plug-ins for compatibility until then. However, the company's plan to natively support the formats is interesting—particularly in the case of ODF.
The Open Document Format has been popularized largely by the rival (and open-source) OpenOffice.org suite. News.com points out that the format has become popular with "governments and schools," and that Microsoft's moves are its way of acknowledging requests for cross-compatibility.
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