Sun develops StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology

Sun develops StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology

Sun Microsystems has said that they would soon offer a software product that would enable the users to provide translation between the file format in Microsoft’s Office 2003 suite and ODF (Open Document Format for XML).

This technology has been named StarOffice 8 Conversion Technology and it is expected to be launched mid-February with a final release on Sun’s Web site by the middle of June.

Sun said that this application would provide two-way conversion between Microsoft Office 2003 and ODF for office documents.

Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun said in a statement: “Right now, our focus is to ensure that people using assistive devices are able to join in with OpenDocument workflows. Because Microsoft hasn’t published interfaces for those devices to use, they are all hard-wired to Office 2003, and their users can’t migrate to other software.”

Sun added that at the moment, the state of Massachusetts is using the convertor as part of their project to migrate all their office documents to ODF.

Microsoft on their part have also funded the development of software that offers two-way conversion between the default format in Office 2007, Open XML, and ODF. That project has been named ODF Translator and the first release was launched last week.