Microsoft Corp. today announced the launch of its Document Interoperability Initiative, which is aimed at promoting user choice among document formats and expanded opportunity for developers, partners and competitors. The launch of this initiative is an important step in Microsoft’s commitment to implement a set of strategic changes in its technology and business practices to expand interoperability through the implementation of its interoperability principles. The Document Interoperability Initiative focuses on bringing vendors together to promote interoperability between document format implementations through testing and refining those implementations, creation of format implementation test suites, and the creation of templates designed for optimal interoperability between different formats.

Microsoft hosted in Cambridge today a number of independent software vendors (ISVs), including Novell Inc., Mark Logic Corp., Quickoffice Inc., DataViz Inc. and Nuance Communications Inc., to launch this collaborative, community-based initiative. The Cambridge event is the first in a series of labs around the world that will bring together vendors to test interoperability between their implementations of well-known document formats, and between implementations of different formats. The Cambridge lab will test interoperability between existing implementations of Microsoft Office Open XML Formats and the Open Document Format (ODF) on a variety of platforms and devices including Mac OS X Leopard, iPhone, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Linux and Windows Mobile.

Also announced today is the 1.1 release of a translator between ODF and Open XML for Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet) and Microsoft PowerPoint (presentation) applications. This is the result of an ongoing open source project for which Microsoft announced its support in July 2006. Key performance enhancements and end-user improvements reflected in the new translators are based on feedback received from numerous public and private organizations.

Microsoft has committed to support future releases of the translator taking advantage of the improvements in Microsoft Office converter APIs announced as part of the interoperability principles on Feb. 21 to provide a better integrated experience for customers to open and save ODF files. These APIs and the guidance provided by the OpenXML-ODF Translator project will also make it easier for users to take advantage of other document formats, such as UOF and DAISY.