Microsoft ’s bid to have its Open XML file format approved as an ISO standard took another step forward Monday when that organization put the measure on a voting ballot sent to its member ...

According to technical documentation on IBM’s own Web sites, the company already supports Open XML, the native file format of Microsoft Office 2007, in at least four of its programs.

Meanwhile, an upcoming release of the Macintosh software, called Office 2008 for Mac, will use Open XML as its default file format. Open XML was approved as a standard last December by ECMA ...

But sometime this spring, Microsoft plans to release similar software to enable users of all older versions of Office for Apple Inc.’s Macintosh systems to access Open XML files created in ...

ODF is a rival to Office Open XML. If Ecma approves the Office Open XML format, used by Microsoft in its forthcoming Office 2007 software suite, the Danish ministries could use that instead.

The Open XML work will ultimately allow users to more easily share files between Microsoft Office 2007 and OpenOffice, which support different document formats, Steinman said.