OpenDocument Still Lives

January 5, 2006: Despite Massachusetts IT soap operas, the North American state government has confirmed that it will be sticking with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) OpenDocument file format until further notice.

The news that has triggered most interest in ODF- the resignation of 'lightning rod' Massachusetts CIO, Peter Quinn - has focussed on rumours of Microsoft pressure to make its own Office XML format a ratified Ecma standard.

In order to circumvent any 'politics vs IT' arguments it looks like the Massachusetts government has leaked its intention to stay with the OASIS format to industry insider Andy Undergrove of Consortium.org.

According to Undergrove: "Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance Thomas H. Trimarco met with the Information Technology Division (ITD) general counsel Linda Hamel on Tuesday. He assured her that Peter Quinn's departure "will result in no change to the administration's position on the ODF standard."

However, Quinn's resignation certainly has reignited the debate as to which 'Office' standard for cross-platform, multi-purposed document and records management should reign supreme.

Is OpenDocument a viable option?

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