Ecma Says Yeah To Microsoft Open Office XML

More specifically, the Geneva-based organization formed a Technical Committee to produce a formal standard of the work that is compatible with Office Open XML formats.

That committee will take on responsibility of maintaining and evolving the standard, according to a statement issued by Ecma Secretary General Jan van den Beld.

It is not exactly clear how this news will affect the file format spat launched by the state of Massachusetts last year.

Massachusetts IT top dogs backed the Open Document format, backed by non-Microsoft powers and actively opposed by Redmond.

The Massachusetts situation devolved into a running drama, with Governor Mitt Romney—who craves the Republican nomination for president—distanced himself from the state's IT poohbahs' anti-Microsoft stance. And the state then pretty much reversed their call, saying that Microsoft's Office Open XML met the state's needs for document storage and interoperability.

The state then initiated an investigation of business travel by CIO Peter Quinn. Most of that travel was to attend Open Source conferences.

Last week, Quinn was cleared of any wrongdoing. The whole thing is a tad, well, unsavory.