Texas, Minnesota may abandon Microsoft for open standards

By Adam Turner
Wednesday, 07 February 2007 08:51

IT Policy - Regulation

Two more states US states may turn their back on Microsoft and adopt open document formats under separate bills put to the state legislatures.

The Minnesota bill proposes the mandate take effect July 1, 2008, while the Texas bill gives sets a deadline of September 1, 2008, to develop a plan for the transition, reports LinuxWorld.com.au.

The states' executive branch, legislature, courts and schools could all make the move to an open standard such as Open Document Format, a major blow to Microsoft's efforts to push its new Office 2007 suite. Open Document Format is the default format of open source Office competitors such as OpenOffice and StarOffice.

Microsoft has developed its own "open" format in Open XML, although there is debate as to whether it is a true open standard. The open source community has also developed a Microsoft Office plugin, with Microsoft's blessing, that allows Office 2007 to work with ODF files.

The Texan Bill provides a working definition of an open document format which Microsoft's Open XML may struggle to meet, although Microsoft's efforts to fast track the adoption of Open XML as an ISO standard may get it over the line. ODF became an ISO standard last year.

Massachusetts was the first US state to mandate the use of ODF as the standard format for all state agency documents. International concern is growing over reliance on Microsoft and its proprietary formats, particularly in Europe. As such, ODF and OpenOffice have a user base as diverse as the French parliament, the Israeli Ministry of Commerce and the Singapore military.