Microsoft has started an open source project for translating documents from Open XML to ODF formats. This was one of the things that had come up when Open XML was standardized. The OpenXML Translator, which is an add-in for Microsoft Word 2007, will provide options for opening and saving in ODF format. It is an open source project hosted on Sourceforge. Novell is also planning to use it for interoperability with OpenOffice. It is commendable that work is being done in this direction. However, I have a feeling that this is largely going to go unnoticed.
I still wonder why two standards are being promoted for the same purpose. This is still worse than complying with a single standard. For example, the translators will have to be kept updated whenever any of the ends changed, that is, whenever OpenXML or ODF changed. And this will not be only for the editor or the spreadsheet, but for the entire suite. If not updated it will cause a nightmare for interoperability, which I assume is the main purpose of standards.
