Microsoft believes that the IT industry has evolved to the point where a long-term foundation must be put into place to drive greater collaboration across open source and proprietary software companies that will ultimately yield increased benefits for all customers.

As part of this ongoing effort to promote and facilitate interoperability and innovation, the company continues to expand the Open XML- Open Document Format (ODF) Translator project. The project, developed with partners, seeks to create tools to build a technical bridge between Ecma Office Open XML Formats and ODF. Recently, Microsoft announced that Turbolinux, a major distributor of Linux software suits in Asia, will be joining the project.

It is both companies’ hope that this new collaboration will help in the creation of localized versions of the translators for Asian language customers. To learn a bit more about the progress being made by the Open XML-ODF Translator project and the value that Turbolinux will provide as a member of the Sourceforge project community, PressPass spoke with Jean Paoli, co-creator of the XML 1.0 standard and Microsoft’s general manager for interoperability and XML Architecture, and Mio Matsuda, manager, International Business Division, Turbolinux, Inc.