OT: Massachusetts Verdict: MS Office Formats Out

[Temlakos]

Mike McCarty wrote:
> Fajar Priyanto wrote:
> 
>> The future is forming up....
>>
>> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1863060,00.asp
>>
>> The state of Massachusetts Friday made it official: It will use only 
>> nonproprietary document formats in state-affiliated offices effective 
>> Jan. 1, 2007. Although state CIO Peter Quinn has said repeatedly that 
>> this issue does not represent "the state versus Microsoft Corp. —or 
>> any one company," adoption of the long-debated plan may result in all 
>> versions of Microsoft's Office productivity suite being phased out of 
>> use throughout the state's executive branch agencies. 
> 
> 
> Or MS could "open" its document format...
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Mike

Not in a hundred years will MS do any such thing.

Actually, the Massachusetts decision is a bigger boon to the OpenOffice 
project than to Linux alone--because after all, OpenOffice is available 
in any OS you can name. I've recommended OO to a client when MS Office 
crashed and burned on his Windows 98SE system.

Temlakos