Mass. Finalizes Plan to Drop MS Office

"There is simply no principled basis for causing the foregoing costs to be borne by the Commonwealth, its citizens, and the private sector, particularly given a) the significant flaws with the OpenDocument format, and b) the availability of more cost effective alternative ways to achieve the Commonwealth's principal data interoperability objectives," Microsoft continued.

According to the ITD, however, "There is no evidence that migrating to office applications that support Open Document Format will be any more costly than upgrading current applications." The ITD noted that any office application is free to implement OpenDocument, including Microsoft Office; Microsoft has said it has no plans to do so.

"In short, the proposed policy is costly and unnecessary and would limit the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to a desktop software policy that is less functional, less open, and less flexible than the Commonwealth's current policy," Microsoft closed its letter.

But Corel, Sun, IBM and Adobe all voiced support for the Commonwealth's efforts, and public comments on the plan were nothing but supportive.

"I must commend you on your endorsement of open standards. Very few non-technical people really understand the significance of real standards (as opposed to proprietary "standards") and standards compliance in general. This is certainly a huge step in the right direction. Hopefully, other states (and countries) will follow your example swiftly," one response read.

Microsoft could potentially receive a reprieve when it launches Office 12 in late 2006. The new suite will be based around completely new file formats dubbed Open Office XML, which are fully documented and royalty free. However, much skepticism remains among open standards advocates.

"What Microsoft says about this format is a half-truth. It is true that these formats are documented, and "others" can implement them - but not all others," Free Software Foundation president Richard Stallman told BetaNews. "Microsoft's patent license for this format does not demand royalty payments, but it does impose a restriction that rules out free software."

"I hope that the state of Massachusetts will not be fooled by Microsoft's word games," Stallman added. "Microsoft is free to implement OASIS Open Document format, and if it is willing to tolerate interoperability, that's all it needs to do."