Use the OpenOffice OpenDocument Format from Microsoft Office?

Yes, it sounds like blasphemy, but the good guys over at http://o3.phase-n.com/ have started an open source project that will enable Microsoft Office to write and read OpenDocument format documents.

If your not familiar with it, OpenDocument is an XML-based file format specification for office applications run by OASIS. The lofty goal is to provide a common file format that any applicaiton can share without developing application specific file converters.

I actually spoke to industry leaders about 4 years ago about the idea of creating a common XML file format for Office documents. The main push back I got is that a lot of information that has to be stored in the document is application specific, as each application supports different things. In other words, trying to come up with one common format might simplify the file format so much that we'd have to give up functionality. I can see how this would be a challenge. But I have to say the advantage of a universal file format is very appealing.