Microsoft wants to build support for three open formats into
Office 2007. CNET News reports that 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.