I doubt you will be surprised to hear that Massachusetts has issued a statement about Microsoft's ECMA plans. Here's their statement as reported in News.com: Microsoft intends to submit the XML-based document formats in Office 12 to standards bodies Ecma International and ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. The company hopes that a committee can complete the standards process in about a year, which is when Office 12 is due for release.
Two days after Microsoft's announcement, the Romney administration issued a statement in response to Microsoft's move.
"The commonwealth is very pleased with Microsoft's progress in creating an open document format. If Microsoft follows through as planned, we are optimistic that Office Open XML will meet our new standards for acceptable open formats," the statement said. The statement is attributed to the state's administration and finance secretary, Tom Trimarco, whose office sets standards for the state's executive branch agencies. In the most remarkable of coincidences, the source for the Boston Globe's smear article (cf. this earlier article) regarding Peter Quinn appears to also have been the state's Administration and Finance department. At least, if you look at the list of conferences the CIO attended printed by the Globe, you will find at the bottom of the list, this notation: Sources: Executive office for Administration and Finance. Individual conferences. Small world, isn't it? I gather Microsoft has friends in high places, and they can just about qualify before they even file anything. No favoritism there. So, is everyone assuming that ECMA and ISO will rubberstamp Microsoft's application, or what?
|
