Mass. plan to dump MS Office for OpenDocument a 'matter of control'

Mass. plan to dump MS Office for OpenDocument a 'matter of control': "What is Massachusetts' main motivation for moving from MS Office to the OpenDocument standard?

Stephen O'Grady: Essentially, it's their belief that the state of Massachusetts, as a sovereign power, needs to exercise that power to protect its interests [for a] longer term. What that means in their terms is that whatever the basis for document interchange will be, it needs to be independently managed and owned. It can't be owned by a single commercial entity as Microsoft's OpenDocument alternative -- the Office Open XML formats -- is. It comes down to sort of a matter of control, and, in the case of the OpenDocument format, it's not controlled by any single party. Therefore, Massachusetts, as a sovereign entity, feels more comfortable with that approach longer term."