OASIS has created a new discussion list for members and non-members to explore a proposal to form an ODF Implementation, Interoperability and Conformance (IIC) Technical Committee. The new TC would provide a means for software implementors and service providers to create applications that adhere to the ODF specification and are able to interoperate. Proposers include representatives from Ars Aperta, IBM, and Novell; Rob Weir of IBM is designated as the discussion leader.

Potential activities for the OASIS ODF IIC TC include:

Today, IBM announced the “coming of age” of ODF with the general availability of Lotus Symphony. Lotus Symphony represents a truly global launch with nearly 1 million beta testers, working with the solution in 24 languages, taking advantage of the offering’s Web 2.0 extensions, new technical support services for enterprises, and more.

The official standardization of Microsoft's Office Open XML document format could be delayed after a formal objection was made to the International Organization for Standardization.

On the same day that the state of New York published a report supporting open formats for electronic documents, mighty Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) said that it would support the open-source ODF format in Office 2007. Redmond's own Open Office XML specification may be heading for the great Recycle Bin in the sky, never to come back.

Read the complete article by Anders Bylund in the Motley Fool.

The Dutch Council of State will let loose the software it uses to convert proprietary document formats created in MS Office into Open Source documents which follow the Open Document Format (ODF) protocol. The software, which has been developed by Council employee Marcel Pennock and uses existing plug-ins, offers an icon which centrally converts documents to either ODF of PDF in the background.

Conversion testing has so far been successful, with just minor colour issues found in PDF files created by the software.