[ Thanks to William
Dawes for this link. ]
“In the fall of 2005, in my home state of Massachusetts, Peter
Quinn, the CIO of the Commonwealth, endorsed a plan to require the
state government to use the Open Document Format for storing
government records. The big loser, of course, would be Microsoft
and its monopoly. The behemoth from Redmond Washington didn’t waste
time reacting. Shortly thereafter, the Boston Globe ran a story
that Quinn had improperly used public funds to attend conferences.
The story ended up being false. Quinn was cleared of any
wrongdoing. Nevertheless, he resigned in January 2006, already
tired of the fight. Others soldiered on, with the backing of then
governor Mitt Romney. They were met by opposition from the
Secretary of State William Galvin and state senator Marc Pacheco.
Both of these men have received support from Microsoft
lobbyists…”