"IBM is interested in providing editors that you can use inside of business applications," Wohl said. "That's where all this is coming from. I think it's a good thing."

And even though Microsoft -- which sees much of its revenue and profit from sales and updates of its Microsoft Office suite -- has so far chosen not to adopt the ODF standard, users can often get around that by integrating available third-party add-ins that allow Microsoft Office to work with ODF, she said. "IBM is cutting into Microsoft's space only as far as Microsoft doesn't choose to adopt the standard," Wohl said.