In an effort to get the EU off Microsoft’s back, Steve Ballmer held a press conference today that will completely change the way Microsoft does business..at least as far as their products are concerned. The company is going ‘open’,and will begin publishing documentation for all of its “high-volume product” APIs free of charge. The company will also detail patents it holds and applications that cover its protocols, and provide a “covenant not to sue open source developers for development or non-commercial distribution of implementations of these protocols.”

What does this mean for Apple? Well, it means they, along with every other third-party developer, has a new found ability to create unprecedented interoperability with all of Microsoft’s high-volume products including Windows and MS Office.

Click here to read the full press release from MS.