The mud slinging in the format war down in Massachusetts is in full fare. As the Inquirer points out, both governor and Mitt Romney his CIO Peter Quinn have come under political fire after they decided to favour the Open Document Format (ODF), dealing a blow to Microsoft.

Quinn now is accused of accepting bribes because he failed to properly report trips to open source conferences. The allegations charge that he should have reported which companies sponsored the events.

A Microsoft servant was clearly firing a warning shot here. Besides the ridiculous nature of the complaint, the trips actually took place after the state decided that it like open formats better than proprietary ones. So far for charging that the event sponsors were trying to influence the decision making process.

Besides, Microsoft last week more or less opened its Office document format, which might outdate the entire discussion.

Still there is much at stake here for Microsoft. If Massachusetts keeps favouring ODF over the Microsoft, it will set an important precedent.

Tags: Microsoft, ODF, Massachusetts

29 Nov 2005