New Guidelines Shift Policy from Technology Mandates Toward a More Effective Goals-Based Policy
Washington – Today, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Information Technology Division finalized its open format proposal as part of a periodic revision to its Enterprise Technical Reference Model (ETRM). The ETRM version 4.0 is now ready to be implented by the Commonwealth’s government agencies. In response to the new policy, Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) president Jonathan Zuck made the following statement:
“The Massachusetts open format policy has evolved into a much more effective solution to the challenges of interoperability, competition, and long-term document access, but it can still be improved. The Commonwealth has moved beyond strict technology mandates and has developed a more flexible framework for achieving its goals. It allows for agencies to choose from multiple ‘open standards’ to meet individual goals, and even seems to allow agencies to select non-open standards under certain circumstances.”
“The one real limitation to the policy is the rigid definition of ‘open standard’ used in the ETRM. The policy limits the Commonwealth’s choices to ’open standards,’ when the goals could be achieved with merely ‘open formats.’ While small firms are often willing to open up their formats and technologies, they often do not have the political clout to move their formats through an open standards body the way IBM, Sun, and Microsoft have done. In fact, even open source formats like Ogg Vorbis would be locked out. Yet, these small firm technologies may better meet the needs of the Commonwealth and individual agencies.”
“In addition, by committing only to broad open standards approved by international committees, the needs of smaller user groups can be overlooked. As the ETRM acknowledges, there are currently no office applications with native ODF support that provide accessibility for persons who use assistive technology devices.”
“It is obvious from the changes that the new administration realizes the problems inherent in this kind of policy. We can only hope that the policy continues to evolve in the coming months toward a truly goals-based policy that gives the Commonwealth’s CIOs the flexibility they need.
“The evolution of the Massachusetts policy should provide valuable insights for governments around the world that are trying to solve the same problems. One-size fits all solutions that lock the government into one format are wrong-headed. Instead, governments should focus on goals-based policies that give them the flexibility to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow.”
The Association for Competitive Technology (ACT) is an international education and advocacy group for the technology industry. Focusing on the interests of small and mid-size entrepreneurial technology companies, ACT advocates for a “Healthy Tech Environment” that promotes innovation, competition and investment. ACT has been active on issues such as intellectual property, international trade, e-commerce, privacy, internet policy and antitrust. ACT represents more than 3000 software developers, systems integrators, IT consulting and training firms, and e-businesses from around the world.