Microsoft has announced the launch of its Document Interoperability Initiative, 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 a number of independent software vendors (ISVs), including Novell, Mark Logic, Quickoffice, DataViz and Nuance Communications, 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 the Microsoft Office Open XML Format 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.

“Microsoft believes that the industry has a responsibility to come together to address the interests of users in achieving greater interoperability and effective data exchange between widely deployed document format implementations,” said Jean Paoli, general manager for Interoperability and XML Architecture at Microsoft. “The labs are designed to bring technical staff together to roll up their sleeves and test interoperability between implementations of formats and address issues that are identified either in those implementations or in the translation technologies used to work across formats.”

"We are pleased to collaborate with Microsoft to meet customer demands for content solutions that easily interoperate. Utilising open document standards, such as Open XML and ODF, will improve the way organisations work across disparate platforms,” said Andy Feit, senior vice president of Marketing at Mark Logic. “Enhancing document format interoperability between MarkLogic Server and other products in the marketplace will make it much easier for our customers to deploy applications for content assembly, reuse and delivery.”

Also announced is the 1.1 release of a translator between ODF and Open XML for Microsoft Excel (spreadsheet) and Microsoft PowerPoint (presentation) applications.