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Massachusetts is moving forward with a plan to transition from proprietary document formats to XML-based open standards. But the latest draft of the proposal includes one notable change: Microsoft Office is no longer considered an open format and thus is not sanctioned for use.

Last year, Massachusetts officials embarked on an ambitious project to promote the use of open source and open standards software within the state government. The goal was to save money that would have been spent licensing expensive proprietary software and ensure interoperability between agencies.

"The Commonwealth defines open formats as specifications for data file formats that are based on an underlying open standard, developed by an open community, affirmed and maintained by a standards body and are fully documented and publicly available," reads the guidelines.

Massachusetts chose the OpenDocument format as suitable for use, and will require all office applications to support the standard. OpenDocument, otherwise known as the OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications, is supported by OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, KOffice, and IBM Workplace.

The commonwealth established a deadline of January 1, 2007 for migrating to applications that work with OpenDocument. "Any acquisition of new office applications must support the OpenDocument standard," the policy says.
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