Microsoft, under pressure from European regulators, national standards organizations and its own government clients, said it planned to give customers the ability to open, edit and save documents in Open Document Format — the main competitor to the Microsoft Word format — through a free update. With the update, consumers will be able to save text documents in ODF format and adjust Office 2007 settings to automatically save documents in the rival format...

Chris Capossela, a senior vice president in Microsoft’s business division in Redmond, Wash., said the decision stemmed from Microsoft’s commitment to make its programs more compatible with rival software, part of general move away from a longstanding defense of its proprietary software.

Read the complete article by Kevin J. O'Brien in the New York Times.