Even though MS did eventually back-off, this is a pretty wild story and some good writing from Carol Sliwa at Computerworld.
For Microsoft, the call to arms had sounded several months earlier, when the state's IT division surprised the company with a controversial decision to adopt the Open Document Format for Office Applications, or ODF, as its standard file format. Even worse, from Microsoft's perspective, the policy stipulated that new desktop applications acquired by state agencies feature built-in support for ODF, a standard developed and promoted by some of its rivals - most prominently, IBM and Sun Microsystems Inc.
If nothing else you have appreciate Microsoft's efforts to protect its market share. And really, I don't appreciate anything else about it :>
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on December 4, 2006 01:31 PM
