Native ODF support in MS Office 2007

WOW, Microsoft kept its promise.

With SP2, MS Office 2007 has now native support for ODF 1.1 and PDF.


MS Office 2007 SP2

• OpenDocument Format (ODF) support
  SP2 lets you open, edit, and save documents in version 1.1 of the ODF for Word, for Excel, and for PowerPoint. Users of these Office programs can now open, edit, and save files in the OpenDocument Text (*.odt), OpenDocument Spreadsheet (*.ods), and OpenDocument Presentations (*.odp) formats.

• Built-in Save As PDF/XPS support
  PDF/XPS support is built into SP2 for Word, for Excel, and for PowerPoint. Users no longer have to download the add-in separately.

I haven't tested the new feature, I don't know how well it is implemented, but I'm looking for the first user experiences.

So, what could this mean?

• You are able to open OpenOffice.org documents in MS Office 2007.
  
• Seamless document exchange between OpenOffice.org, Star Office and MS Office?
• Another implementation of the ISO standard ODF.
• Migrations to ODF and OpenOffice.org is easier?
• End of MS Office lock-in?
  
• ...

Of course a very close look to the implementation is necessary, but this is definitely a big step for Microsoft.