TechEssence.info

As anticipated, earlier this week the International Standards Organization approved the OpenDocument Format for retrieving and exchanging documents. The impetus to move to an open standard has come from governments, archivists, and librarians concerned about the storage and use of longtime proprietary document file formats such as MS Office documents and pdf files.
See:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1957497,00.asp

Microsoft is countering ODF with an open format, OpenXML, which is also under review by ISO.

These competing standards could inspire a new IT battlefront that could effect the adoption of office software suites being used in publicly-funded institutions. This fight could get nasty.