In Belgium, for instance, the government is using plug-ins to enable Microsoft Office to read and save files in ODF, Marcich said.
The same plug-ins are being used in Massachusetts, which was the first governmental body to move to ODF.
One prominent ODF backer, the unrelated Open Document Foundation, said in late October that it would stop backing ODF in favor of a more viable universal format called the Compound Document Format (CDF).
Marcich said that "won't have any effect on the alliance or on ODF" adoption. Moreover, CDF, which is a World Wide Web Consortium format, differs greatly in features and goals than ODF.
"We're talking about apples and oranges here," he said.