Over the last 24 to 36 months, PDF has started to look more like a serious competitor to Office's standard formats. Late last year, Acrobat 7 added some amazing utility, such that users could grab content from almost any file type and mix it together to create a PDF document. The new functionality stood to solve the longstanding problems sharing information because of disparate file formats. In essence, Acrobat 7 raised the stakes in the quietly growing format war between PDF and Office formats. Microsoft has attempted to raise the stakes, for its customers, but also against open-source alternatives and PDF, by announcing the Microsoft Office Open XML Formats coming with version 12 of the productivity suite. From my perspective, the new formats aren't "open" or XML. The formats may not be as closed as older Office formats, and they are XML based, which I'd like to point out isn't the same as true XML formats. If PDF is an increasing competitor to Office file formats and for some customers a viable alternative, why should Microsoft add support to Office 12? Why now?