When open-standards advocate Peter Quinn resigned as CIO of Massachusetts last month, amid intense and ugly political pressure, it didn't look good for the state's plan to adopt OpenDocument as its file-format standard for Office documents. That plan has been fiercely opposed by Microsoft, which fears the abandonment of the proprietary document formats that have long provided a bulwark against competition for its ubiquitous and highly profitable Office suite.
But it doesn't look like the state is backing down. When Microsoft's national technology officer, Stuart McKee, recently told a reporter that Massachusetts's interim CIO Bethann Pepoli "is crafting an additional policy," implying that the state was backing away from its plan, Pepoli quickly shot back a denial, saying that Massachusetts "is not crafting an additional policy in regard to the OpenDocument initiative ... We are proceeding with implementation of the OpenDocument Format standard.
Yesterday, the administration of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, in a clear sign of continued support for the OpenDocument policy, announced the appointment of Louis Gutierrez as the state's new CIO. The second sentence of the press release on the appointment states: "Gutierrez will be responsible for overseeing the final stages of implementation of the state's new OpenDocument format proposal, to go into effect in January 2007." The release also notes that Gutierrez:
led the development and implementation of the state's Virtual Gateway, an online portal that integrated the web presence of 16 agencies into a user-friendly format that improved service delivery and reduced costs. "The Virtual Gateway is an example of how state government computing can be transformed through the application of open standards that interoperate with many kinds of technology and vendors," said Gutierrez. "As technology continues to evolve there remain substantial opportunities to transform services and a need to plan for the long-term future of technology-infused operations."
As Andy Updegrove writes, "Clearly, this press release is being used to express the determination of the Romney administration to push through its implementation of ODF. This is doubly significant in a political sense, given that Romney has made no effort to deny that he has forgone running for reelection in favor of nurturing his chances to make a run for the United States presidency. By underlining his commitment to ODF, Romney may be using the ODF issue to draw a line in the sand, thereby demonstrating that he will neither kowtow to special interests (in this case, Microsoft), nor will he 'flip flop' on a policy, once he has committed to it."
This fight, which has many political as well as technological angles, is far from over, but it's nice to see that, so far, the state administration refuses to be bullied. It will be interesting to watch how Microsoft responds to Gutierrez's appointment. At this point, you have to wonder why the company is so intent on stopping the state's experiment with ODF. After all, if the move proves a disaster, as Microsoft claims it will, won't that confirm the superiority of Microsoft's formats and stop other government agencies from following in Massachusetts's footsteps?
Could it be that what Microsoft really fears is that the adoption of ODF won't be a failure but a success?
