Office XML gets Massachusetts Green Light

There is some history to this story. A while back (2005) Massachusetts decided that all of the document sit dealt with would be open XML formats. At the time this meant ODF because the view was that the Microsoft format wasn’t open enough.

Many people expected others to follow the Massachusetts lead.

Today it seems that Microsoft have indeed done enough to make Open Office XML (OOXML) a suitable format.

Similar to my last post, this is a fight about primacy. In this case this is Microsoft fighting to retain primacy in the office application space by retaining primacy in the file format space. Microsoft wasn’t going to hand over it’s primacy without a fight. they may have had to become more open to retain it, but they have probably gone a long way to securing the file format primacy.