Microsoft is putting a key web technology at the heart of its most popular programs.

By late 2006 all the files created by users of its Office suite of software will be formatted with web-centred XML specifications.

The decision marks a big change to Microsoft’s existing proprietary file formats that can be hard to work with.

Microsoft said the changes should make it much easier for companies to do more business via the web.

*closes eyes, crosses fingers and cries ‘please let them not screw this up’*

And then I remember that it’s Microsoft who have “supported XML in Office since 2000 within the HTML formats in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.” That is, their own version of HTML that only bears a passing resemblance to anything the rest of the web is doing.

“Microsoft is basing its file formats on the XML 1.0 specification.” Is that going to be in the same way that O Brother Where Art Thou was based on The Odyssy…..

BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft adopts web file styles (hang on … xml is about structure not style..)