A press release from Microsoft now promises native ODF support in the next service pack for Office 2007, while full support for the ISO version of OOXML will have to wait until the next major release of Office. Have they finally realized that their "format war" was a lost cause, and that the formal ISO acceptance of DIS29500 was a victory only on paper? If this is an honest attempt to play nice, it is a very welcome move.
Of course, only time will tell if they will deliver on this promise, but the tone has changed dramatically, and this might actually be a good time to celebrate. We wish to welcome Microsoft to the party, even though they are very late and managed to make a fool of themselves in the process of trying to fight this outcome in every way possible.
Had they only made this move a year ago, they would have saved many people a lot of trouble, including themselves. It is probably safe to assume that it was the strong opposition that forced them to the ODF table.