Microsoft fights bid to drop Office software

Microsoft Corp. has launched an assault on a Massachusetts government plan to move computer networks at all state agencies onto an open-file format by January 2007.

Such a move, if approved, could displace Microsoft's profitable Office software and, if followed by other government bodies across the country and abroad, could threaten Microsoft's dominance on desktop computers in the public sector. The company now holds more than 90 percent of the global market in office productivity software.

In a 15-page comment filed with the Massachusetts Information Technology Division, and copied to Governor Mitt Romney, the Redmond, Wash., company objected strenuously to the agency's Aug. 31 draft report recommending that the state migrate to a new file format called OpenDocument. The report said the OpenDocument standard would better enable state agencies to communicate with one another, share data, and preserve vital records as technology vendors change.

The OpenDocument format was created last spring by an industry consortium that included Microsoft, IBM Corp., and others.

Microsoft, however, is resisting the adoption of OpenDocument as a standard file format. Instead, it is readying a new version of Office using a similar XML document standard that is says will offer the same benefits to customers while providing greater functionality.

Microsoft executives are now warning in their comments that the proposed move could cost the state money if its agencies are forced to cancel Office licenses, some of which extend beyond January 2007 and could create problems interacting with businesses.

''Were this proposal to be adopted, the significant costs incurred by the Commonwealth, its citizens, and the private sector would be matched only by the levels of confusion and incompatibility that would result from the fact that the OpenDocument format is such a nascent and immature format," Microsoft general manager Alan Yates wrote in the company's comments. He suggested a move to OpenDocument would flout practices requiring the state to seek ''best value" in procurement.

''Certainly Microsoft is going to be concerned that other states might move in the direction of Massachusetts," said Ian Campbell, president and chief executive of Nucleus Research Inc., a technology research firm in Wellesley. ''They want to retain their proprietary format."

Massachusetts state officials tangled with Microsoft earlier in the decade in the long-running antitrust case challenging the company's bundling of its Internet Explorer browser into its Windows operating system. The current push to an open-file format is, in part, a reaction to Microsoft's putting tighter controls on its proprietary format, said Eric Kriss, the Massachusetts secretary of administration and finance.

Kriss said the state's information technology division is digesting comments on its draft report and conferring with lawmakers who have raised concerns about the report. Kriss said he and his colleagues were preparing a full response to Microsoft's comments and hoped to have final approval of their plan within weeks.

''It's an important issue," Kriss said. ''Open formats are at the very heart of our democratic process. The question is whether a sovereign state has the obligation to ensure that its public documents remain forever free and unencum-bered by patent, license, or other technical impediments. We say, yes, this is an imperative. Microsoft says they disagree and want the world to use their proprietary formats."

Massachusetts government agencies now store documents in a number of proprietary software formats, created by Microsoft and other companies, that are often incompatible. State officials say the move to the open format, part of a larger push toward open standards in information technology, will make government data more transparent and protect the state in the event that a software vendor abandons a proprietary format at some point in the future.

The debate is likely to intensify in November at the Open Source Business Conference at the Newton Marriott sponsored by International Data Group, where Microsoft representatives are expected to face off against Massachusetts government officials at a session on open standards.

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.