Microsoft today launched an open source software project on the SourceForge site, aimed at developing conversion tools that will translate Microsoft Office binary files to Office Open XML (OOXML) file formats. According to Vijay Rajagopalan, principal architect in the Interoperability & Platform Strategy group at Microsoft, initial work will focus on a Word conversion solution, with Excel and PowerPoint file formats to be addressed starting in the spring.

“We are hoping that our first beta version of this is going to come out around June 30th. That will give us a good benchmark of what are the capabilities of the Word translator," Rajagopalan said. "Around April we are hoping to publicly make our first technology preview.”

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Microsoft, OOXML, Office Open, XML, Open-Source, Open Source, File Format, Document, Documents, Microsoft Projects, Launch