Massachusetts has been a lightning rod and a leader in the movement for governments to embrace open document formats and neither of those roles change with Wednesday’s announcement that it will adopt Open XML.

"In a not unanticipated move, Massachusetts announced today that Ecma 376, the name given to the Microsoft Office Open XML formats following their adoption by Ecma, would be acceptable for use by the Executive Agencies of the Commonwealth."

Massachusetts is accepting comments on this decision until Friday, July 20th.
Please join us in letting them know that as a government, we expect them to use
a format for their documents that is independent of any proprietary vendor and
fully implementable in free software. OpenDocument meets that requirement;
MS-OOXML does not.

Massachusetts' open formats policy is off to a slow start with only 250 of the government's 50,000 PCs outfitted with the necessary technology. Since the policy was publicly introduced last year, the plan has seen resistance from state employees and Microsoft, lobbying heavily against the format change.

"You know how I always tell you when I make a mistake? Well, it looks like I made one when I told you that I didn't think Massachusetts would care what you said in any emails about Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML specification (now Ecma 376) being proposed as an addition to their list of usable "open standards". I'm hearing that they are reading the emails and will take them seriously."

"With about a week remaining to collect comments on a plan to adopt Ecma’s Open XML standard, Massachusetts is mum on how the issue is fairing, but some who disagree with the action are already voicing their opinion publicly."

"The commonwealth of Massachusetts has done a 180 degree turn and decided to support Microsoft's Office Open XML format in addition to the OASIS Open Document Format."

"As I reported recently, the Massachusetts ITD has announced its intention to add Microsoft's OfficeOpen XML specification (now Ecma 376) to its list of approved "open standards," subject to a very short comment period that will expire on July 20."

"In the fall of 2005, in my home state of Massachusetts, Peter Quinn, the CIO of the Commonwealth, endorsed a plan to require the state government to use the Open Document Format for storing government records."