But why isn't Microsoft committing to ODF 1.2?

It's supposed to have better accessibility and spreadsheet features than ODF 1.1. It's already in the OpenOffice 3.0 beta, is expected to be finalized by OASIS this fall, and is on target to be ratified by ISO next US summer.

Microsoft says it hasn't determined if and when it will support ODF 1.2, and, through a spokeswoman, declined to elaborate why. Marino Marcich, executive director of the ODF Alliance, thinks that's silly. "There's no reason why you couldn't implement ODF 1.2 right now," he said.

I'm a WordPerfect user. Will Microsoft let users set other formats beside ODF and PDF for default save?

Yes, Office 2007 SP2 will let users set any format that they can Save As today be their default, too. That includes WordPerfect, Microsoft Works, older Word formats, Rich Text Format, plain text, and so on.

Hmm, Microsoft seems to be making the playing field awfully level. But there must be SOME remaining friction if I try to avoid OOXML. There will be some. Users saving documents in non-Office formats such as ODF or PDF will see a popup message warning that they may lose certain features or formatting if they go ahead, said a spokeswoman. That's similar to the messages that users see today when they Save As into older Office or non-Office formats.

Also, when opening non-OOXML documents, Office 2007's interface won't automatically remove features that aren't supported in those formats. "For example, when a user opens an .ODS (OpenOffice.org) spreadsheet file they are free to use Excel's conditional formatting to analyze the data and identify trends, even though conditional formatting is not supported by the ODF format," wrote the spokeswoman.

While Creese thinks Microsoft "truly wants to" support ODF as best as it can, it will also subtly remind users that "if you want full fidelity and best interoperability, you'll want OOXML."

Does Office 2007's support for ODF help or hurt OpenOffice.org?

It's obviously early to say, and the answer is likely to have ramifications. For the tens of millions of OpenOffice.org users, this tears down the slight but still annoying compatibility wall separating them and the much larger population of Microsoft Office users.

That is likely to attract some more people to try OpenOffice.org or other free siblings such as StarOffice from Sun Microsystems or Lotus Symphony from IBM.

"If you're not working in an enterprise that has standardized on Microsoft Office, you should think twice before paying full freight for Office, and give serious consideration to this free alternative," wrote Preston Gralla in a review of the upcoming OpenOffice 3.0.

But Microsoft is counting on its new ODF support as well as the gravitational pull from all of the existing Office documents to prevent large enterprises and governmental organizations from leaving the Microsoft Office orbit. And to keep consumers and small businesses, Microsoft is continuing to offer heavy, tactically timed discounts.

Judging by Office 2007's strong sales in the past year since its release, the foundation shows no signs of cracking.