Massachusetts Fights Microsoft on Document Storage

Massachusetts has become the first state to challenge Microsoft’s proprietary format for storing documents, directing the state government’s executive offices to begin storing new records by Jan. 1, 2007 in a format that is open and proprietary-free. The move, reported in the Boston Globe, seeks to ensure the state’s electronic records can easily be read, exchanged and modified now and in the future, free of licensing restrictions and compatibility problems as software evolves. The paper reports that Microsoft and other critics of the change have warned in public hearings that the state is narrowing its options by banking on an untested format that may not work with many of the state’s Office-based computer systems. Read more.