[link|http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/05/29/8378022/index.htm|http://money.cnn.com...8378022/index.htm]

For years the de facto standard for saving files has been Microsoft (Research)'s proprietary formats on popular programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. But tech geeks have long been waiting for a more open alternative to Microsoft's system. The biggest selling point of ODF files is that they can move smoothly between programs without ever being trapped in one place. As a result, rivals of the software giant like Sun and IBM (Research) finally see a chance to grab market share for their own office products.

The man who has become a symbol for this movement is Peter Quinn, the mild-mannered former CIO of Massachusetts. Last fall Quinn made it state policy that by January 2007 all state employees would begin saving their work in open-standard formats such as HTML, PDF, and ODF--files that would work on anyone's software, not just Microsoft's.
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All together now:

Slip sliding away....
Slip sliding away....