Yesterday Becta sent a formal complaint to the European Union against Microsoft- claiming their products do not suport open standards. BECTA says that Office 2007’s underlying format, known as Office Open XML, is not interoperable with software from other vendors.  BECTA wants the EU to compel Microsoft to support open standards, such as the Open Document Format. “Upgrading existing ICT systems to Microsoft Vista or Office 2007 is not recommended,” said the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, in a report issued at the time. The report’s conclusions could end up costing Microsoft millions of dollars in lost sales in the U.K. public sector market.

Strong stuff- but I’d ban it for reasons of usability alone.