New Delhi, Delhi, India, (Business Wire India) -- Governments around the world are moving to include both Open XML and ODF as part of their standards policy. Choice and interoperability among open standards helps to ensure innovation can take place in an efficient manner.

The latest governments adopt OXML as a standard are Denmark, Switzerland and the state of Massachusetts in USA.

On August 1st, 2007, the state of Massachusetts included Open XML and ODF, both, in its state policy. The state opted for choice of open, XML-based document formats by including both standards in its Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM).

On July 10th, 2007, the Swiss Standards Group included Open XML and ODF. eCH is the body in Switzerland responsible for standardization in the realm of e-government. Their most important publication is SAGA.ch, a collection of standards. The Swiss Federal Government declares adherence to standards in SAGA.ch mandatory for its departments as well as for cantons, cities and municipalities. The latest version of SAGA.ch includes both Open XML and ODF.

On June 25th, 2007, Denmark adopted Open XML and ODF as open standards. Ranking among the leading countries in the world in terms of using open standards, Denmark will make seven sets of standards mandatory from 1 January 2008. Both Open Document Format and Ecma Office Open XML will be mandatory for an initial test period of one year from 1 January 2008.

OXML is a recognized standard by ECMA. Thousands of organizations have joined OpenXMLCommunity.org, an independently hosted site, hundreds of ISVs are developing solutions on Open XML, and more and more governments are opting for Choice in standards policies. In addition, more than 10 million compatibility packs that allow users of earlier versions of Microsoft Office to work with Open XML have been downloaded around the world.