Tokyo, Japan-based Turbolinux said it will provide guidance on Japanese and Chinese versions of the Open XML-ODF translators, which will enable Microsoft’s Office to important and export OpenDocument Format files and ODF-compliant office suites, such as StarOffice and OpenOffice.org, to import and export Office Open XML format files.
Turbolinux joins fellow Linux distributors Novell, Xandros, and Linspire in contributing to the project. However, unlike the others, it did not sign a major interoperability or patent agreement alongside joining the translator project.
Microsoft launched the project in July 2006 in response to demands for its Office suite to support ODF, which was approved as an ISO standard in May last year. While the company’s own Open XML format is going through the ISO approval process, strong support for ODF form local and national governments forced Microsoft’s hand.
The project is hosted at the SourceForge open source development repository, and is being run by French software firm CleverAge, as well as Indian testing firm Aztecsoft and Germany’s Dialogika.
The project reached its 1.0 milestone in February with functionality for word-processing applications to read and write to the alternative format, while translators for Excel, PowerPoint, and ODF-compliant alternatives are in development and are scheduled to be available in November.
As well as working with Turbolinux, Microsoft is also working with the Beihang University, Beijing Information Technology Institute, Tsinghua University, and Lenovo’s LitSoft to promote office document interoperability in Asia, this time with China’s Unified Office Format.
