Sun launched the OpenOffice.org project with the aim of creating a community-based, international office suite, able to run on all major platforms and access all functionality and data using open application programming interfaces and XML.
The internet is arguably evolving as an operating system in its own right, with IP, HTML, SMTP and other underlying protocols combining with online application frameworks such as SOAP, web services, Ajax, Ruby on Rails and mash-ups. Added to this are remote web-based storage services, and increasingly sophisticated online applications. The result looks like an OS operating in the 'cloud'.
Newham Borough Council has tested its core business applications for compatibility with Windows Vista six months in advance of a council-wide rollout across 5,000 desktop PCs.
The ODF Alliance has greeted with scepticism Microsoft's announcement of its intention to include support for the Open Document Format in the first half of 2009.