Microsoft News Tracker

Back in April I noted how Microsoft lobbyists were working a full court press to stop passage of US state laws fostering the OpenDocument Format. It turns out they have been very effective:

In a resounding victory for Microsoft Corp., bills seeking to mandate the use of open document formats by government agencies have been defeated in five states, and only a much-watered-down version of such legislation was signed into law in a sixth state.

The proposed bills would have required state agencies to use freely available and interoperable file formats, such as the Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications, instead of Microsoft Corp.’s proprietary Office formats.

Of course, Microsoft would call their Open XML “freely available and interoperable” too.