Open Dialogue: How Microsoft and Massachusetts Defused a Political Battle Over ODF.

The article reports on the effort of Microsoft Corp. in dealing with an amendment to an economic stimulus bill that had been promoted by Brian Burke, the company's government affairs director. This amendment had the potential to cease the Open Document Format (ODF) policy failed in its tracks by giving a government task force. It has been mentioned that this policy stipulated that new desktop applications acquired by state agencies feature built-in support for ODF, a standard developed and promoted by the rivals of this company such as International Business Machines Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. INSETS: Microsoft Gets Help From Both Sides of the Aisle on Lobbying;State's Snub on File Formats Caught Microsoft by Surprise.