MS Office translator now available for OpenOffice

Novell has released a downloadable translator for OpenOffice that allows OpenOffice users to open and save documents in the Microsoft Office Open XML file format. You'll recall that Microsoft released a similar translator last month, for users of its Microsoft Word application. In a blog entry, Microsoft Office Program Manager Brian Jones made some pretty bold pronouncements about the future of the two dueling formats. "I think at this point we can really move onto more productive and collaborative discussion and admit that we are no longer in any sort of 'file format war.' If we ever were really in a war, it's now over, and both sides are winners." While this new translator will certainly make life easier for users of OpenOffice, I sincerely doubt that it marks the end of the XML format war.

For more on the translator:
- see this ZDnet blog entry
- and check out the hyperbolic comments on Brian Jones's blog