Microsoft offers Office 2010 file format 'ballot' to stop EU antitrust probe - 0 views
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In a proposal submitted to the European Commission two weeks ago, Microsoft spelled out a range of promises related to Office, its desktop and server software, and other products to address antitrust concerns first expressed by officials in January 2008.
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Beginning with the release of Office [2010], end users that purchase Microsoft's Primary PC Productivity Applications in the EEA [European Economic Area] in both the OEM and retail channel will be prompted in an unbiased way to select default file format (from options that include ODF) for those applications upon the first boot of any one of them," Microsoft said in its proposal [download Word document]
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Microsoft's proposed undertaking for resolving the ECIS complaint to the European Commission regarding its office productivity software can be downloaded from this linked web page. I've given it a quick skim. Didn't see anything in it for anyone but competing big vendors. E.g., no profiling of data formats for interop of less and more featureful implementations, no round-tripping provisions. Still, some major concessions offered.