The Behemoth Bends to ODF

Wow: it looks like Microsoft has finally admitted that ODF is now too big to ignore. According to the C|net story:

Microsoft said it plans to sponsor an open-source project to create software that will convert Office documents to OpenDocument, a rival format gaining ground, particularly among governments.

The software giant on Thursday is expected to launch the Open XML Translator project on SourceForge.net, a popular site for hosting code-sharing projects that use the BSD open-source license.

The software, developed by a France-based Microsoft partner, will allow people to use Microsoft Office to open and save documents in the OpenDocument, or ODF, format.

Open source, too.

This is big, not least because it indicates that ODF is now strong enough to bend even the mighty behemoth.