[Golden Eagle]

Editorial on FOX News weighs in on the controversial decision by MA to switch all their systems to an obscure and untested data format.

[HAL9000]

Worse, the policy represents an attack on market-based competition, which in turn will hurt innovation. The state has a disaster in the making.

I bet the new policy will stimulate competition and innovation. It will result in rapid improvements to the OpenDocument standard, and a bunch of great new applications will emerge that will put Microsoft to shame (again). I hope companies like Apple adopt OpenDocument as a native format in their applications.

Jim Prendergast is executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership.

The so-called "Americans for Technology Leadership" is lobbyist outfit funded by Microsoft. Prendergast makes his living by spreading Microsoft FUD.

Nowhere in his article did he address the substantive issues of data format rot in long-term document storage, which may be the reason that Microsoft is banned in Boston.

[Smartaleck]

Anyone have a handle on the political leanings of some of these tech groups?

Adobe, Apple, Sun, Oracle, etc lean left, Microsoft pretty much apolitical but gives to some left leaning causes?

[Mr. K]

If Microsoft gives in and supports this format then other states can force Microsoft to do what they want.

If Microsoft does NOT support it then MA will have thousands of state workers annoyed when they can no longer use Microsoft Word.

This arbitrary decision to support a not widely used new format is stupidity on the part of MA and reminds me of the many 'open source' zealots who insist on that for the 'good of mankind' (like socialists and liberals)

How many companies or people need 'open source' ("Here Grammaw - you can program your own operating systems functions")

[Liberty Valance]

If there is any way to get Ted Kennedy and Bill Gates in a caged 'rasslin' match, i'm all for it. ;o)

[sono]

If that's not enough for WinTel ... wait until this hits the fan ...


http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1865071,00.asp

[ordinaryguy]

I thought you might be interested in this update on the Fox News site.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172063,00.html

Editor's Note: The column "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" that appeared on FOXnews.com Sept. 28 identified author James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, but failed to disclose that Microsoft is a founding member of that organization.

-snip-

Mr. Prendergast's affiliation with Microsoft should have been stated clearly in the article.

[JCEccles]

Editorial on FOX News weighs in on the controversial decision by MA to switch all their systems to an obscure

Reminds me of the copy of Windows 2.0 I picked up in 1989. Obscure and totally useless. Was really colorful, though. I dumped it and went back to straight MS-DOS. What was Bill thinking when he challenged the status quo with such a useless piece of software? Windows deserved to die the ugly death it died in obscurity. MS-DOS is all ANYONE needs.

/sarcasm