Microsoft has begun an initiative designed to increase the openness of its document formats and boost interoperability of them between platforms.

The Document Interoperability Initiative focusses on bringing together vendors to test, refine, create, and template document format implementations, Microsoft said. This will involve testing the interoperability of the Open XML Format and the Open Document Format on a range of platforms including Mac OS Leopard, iPhone, Palm OS, Symbian, Linux and Windows Mobile.

“Microsoft recognizes that users want to choose the document format that best suits their needs and that vendors have a responsibility to work together to achieve interoperability between different format implementations,” said Tom Robertson, general manager, Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft.

“The Document Interoperability Initiative brings vendors together to achieve real-world interoperability between documents that customers use through testing of implementations, building conformance test suites and creating document formats that optimize interoperability between different formats.”

A number of vendors were present at the launch, including Novell, Quickoffice, DataViz and Nuance Communications. As part of the initiative these will participate in ongoing roundtable discussions about the document format implementations, and the associated testing that is required.

Microsoft also announced the 1.1 release of a translator that will work between ODF and Open XML for Excel and PowerPoint applications