Oracle Confirms Commitment to OpenOffice.org (Linux Journal)

My understanding is that Office 2010 *does* conform to *a* standard, that standard being ISO 29500/Transitional. What it doesn't conform to (in the sense of doesn't save as, not can't read) is ISO 29500/Strict -- not much of a surprise, being that that's presumably ( haven't read it) the theoretical ideal no-backwards-compatibility-baggage one, like with HTML 4 Strict/Transitional.

It is true that Office 2007 didn't even conform to ISO 29500/Transitional -- but that's not exactly surprising, given that the standard was only published a year after Office 2007 was released, and underwent several changes towards the end.

I'm not sure that this argument is particularly relevant, though -- discussing how well Microsoft's products conform to a standard that *they themselves introduced* is a bit, well, playing in their ballpark. And certainly doesn't tell you much about their Microsoft's devotion, or lack thereof, to the idea of industry standards.