The British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) said Monday that it has filed a complaint with the European Commission against Microsoft, alleging that its new Office 2007 file format will impede educational initiatives because it does not natively support open standards. At issue is Office 2007's interoperability with the OpenDocument format (ODF), a rival office format that's largely supported by governments and educators. Instead of offering native support, Microsoft has released a converter that will let Word users open documents saved in the OpenDocument format. It has also funded other open-source translator tools The government agency Becta, along with other groups such as the nonprofit OpenForum Europe, said that that's not good enough. In January, Becta even told British schools not to upgrade to Microsoft's Vista operating system and Office 2007. ... http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9947891-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 -- http://karounos.gr/blog/