The US state of Massachusetts is set to mandate the use of Microsoft's Office document formats, including Office Open XML, across its agencies.
The conflict over document formats has taken a twist as some advocates for OpenDocument, or ODF, abandon the format in favor of the World Wide Web (W3) Consortium's Compound Document Formats standard.
Massachusetts will begin using OpenDocument as the default document format later this year as planned, but it will be sticking with Microsoft Office in the near term, the state's top technology executive said.
Massachusetts has named a permanent chief information officer, who will be in charge of carrying out the state's OpenDocument policy.
The commonwealth of Massachusetts has finalised its decision to standardise desktop applications on OpenDocument, a format not supported by Microsoft Office.
Edward J. Black, CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, discusses the implications of Massachusetts' adoption of the OpenDocument format.
The lax dress code of the open-source community is one of the reasons behind the software's slow uptake in commercial environments, says former Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn.
In Mannheim, a preference for "open" standards -- not cost -- is driving the German city's shift to Linux.
Microsoft says beta testing for Office 12 begins in November. Also, the company gets 120,000 requests a month from people who want to save their Office documents in PDF format, making it one of the most requested features.
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