The state of Massachusetts has recently been flirting with open standards, but the process has so far had more twists and turns than a soap opera. The state currently plans to standardize on OpenDocument format (ODF), a move that has met substantial resistance from Microsoft as well as some others in state government. The transition is scheduled to take place by January 1, 2007, but was recently thrown into doubt by the resignation of Peter Quinn, the CIO of the state. In an e-mail, Quinn lamented the fact that he could no longer do his job successfully in the current political climate.

"I have become a lightning rod with regard to any IT initiative. Even the smallest initiatives are being mitigated or stopped by some of the most unlikely and often uninformed parties. The last thing I can let happen is my presence be the major contributing factor in marginalizing the good work of ITD and the entire IT community."

Quinn's resignation is scheduled to take place January 12, 2006, and many supporters of open standards saw the resignation as an indicator that the state had caved in to pressure from Microsoft, which is pushing to have its own Office XML endorsed as an open standard. When Microsoft recently decided to submit Office XML to ECMA, Quinn's boss, Secretary of Administration and Finance Thomas Trimarco, stated publicly that the format might well become acceptable to the state. State legislators also raised issues with OpenDocument, which would require the statewide use of OpenOffice.org, because of concerns over interoperability with other governments, accessibility issues for people with disabilities, and the fact that an Adobe's PDF format was also approved as an open standard, despite having the same licensing problems as Microsoft's Office XML. It quickly began to look like OpenDocument was dead in the water.

But now comes word from Trimarco himself that the state intends to stick with its policy on open standards, and OpenDocument will remain one of those standards. Trimarco reportedly told the general counsel of the state's Information Technology Division that Quinn's resignation "will result in no change to the Administration's position on the ODF standard."

Note, however, that this is not the same as saying that the entire state will ditch Microsoft Office and make the switch to OpenOffice.org. What Trimarco appears to be saying is that OpenDocument will remain on the list of formats that are acceptable to the state. Office XML could still be added to the list, and Microsoft has a whole year in which to convince Massachusetts that it has seen the light regarding open standards. If it does so, the state might well continue to run Office. In fact, the whole saga could turn out to be a victory to Microsoft if the state decides to upgrade all its copies of Office in order to gain seamless access to the Office XML file format. And, of course, if Office XML is declared an open standard, you can forget about seeing OpenDocument support in Office.