“The US state government official who had been moving Massachusetts away from Microsoft’s digital document formats has resigned. Peter Quinn, chief information officer (CIO) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will quit his position, effective January 9, according to an internal memo obtained by the IDG News Service,” Robert McMillan reports for Macworld UK. “Quinn had been behind a drive to change state computers so that they would no longer store documents in proprietary formats such as those used by Microsoft Office and Lotus Notes. Under a proposal drafted by Quinn’s Information Technology Division, (ITD) in 2007, the state would begin a move to the OpenDocument file format, an open, XML-based format used by a variety of products including IBM Workplace and StarOffice.”

“By championing the move away from Microsoft, Quinn became a hero to the open-source community, but he also attracted a level of public scrutiny that disrupted his private and professional life. That attention played a role in his resignation, according to the memo,” McMillan reports. “‘Over the last several months, we have been through some very difficult and tumultuous times,’ he wrote in the memo, which was sent on the evening of December 24 to staff within the ITD. ‘Many of these events have been very disruptive and harmful to my personal well being, my family and many of my closest friends. This is a burden I will no longer carry.’”

McMillan reports, “According to observers, Quinn’s support of OpenDocument had put him in a difficult position, which was made more difficult earlier this year, following the departure of his powerful supporter within Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s administration, administration and finance secretary Eric Criss [sic].”

Full article here.

“Eric Kriss, the former Massachusetts Secretary of Administration and Finance who was Quinn’s boss during most of the ODF evaluation process, said that Quinn found it difficult to handle the personal attacks that followed the state’s high profile move,” Ingrid Marson reports for ZDNet UK. “‘I met with Peter briefly on December 21, prior to his decision, and he indicated to me he was extremely uncomfortable with the personal attention surrounding the open format controversy. Peter is an IT professional who is not accustomed to the rough-and-tumble world of politics,’ said Kriss in an interview with Internet law site Groklaw.”

Marson reports, “Quinn was particularly affected by last month’s report in the Boston Globe, which claimed he had taken unauthorised trips to conferences, according to Kriss. These allegations were investigated, and Quinn was later cleared of any wrongdoing. ‘He found the last few months to be very distasteful, especially the Boston Globe article that seemed to imply some sort of improper influence related to his conference travel,’ Kriss told Groklaw. The Boston Globe’s report attracted a flood of criticism from the technical and legal community. Groklaw described it as a ‘character assassination in an attempt to discredit OpenDocument.’ Andy Oram, an editor for O’Reilly Media, said the article showed that anyone trying to introduce open standards in governments ‘has to be ready for every kind of backlash.’”

Full article here.

More here: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/newsblog/blog.php?ID=1865
And here: http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175700776

MacDailyNews Take: We bet Microsoft would love for the Massachusetts domino not to fall. For if it does fall right, others could follow.

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Massachusetts plans to switch all workers off Microsoft Office starting in 2007 – September 02, 2005
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