India joins software UN

China chose open source software for its second giant leap, but India stayed with the world’s popular software standard: Microsoft. But as a host of nations join the Open Document Format Alliance (ODA), Indian states and government departments are throwing their hats in too. By last week, Delhi State, the Election Commission and Allahabad courts had decided to support ODA fully for their paperwork, adding substantially to its kitty. The ODA is a group of companies including Sun Microsystems, IBM and Red Hat that support inter-operability for documents and a uniform worldwide standard for government electronic stationery. It has Belgium, Brazil, China and Malaysia on its side, while France is waiting in the wings. ODA promises to create a long-lasting, free of cost and international standard for all office documents like letters, e-mails and messages that governments frequently update at a cost if they belong to any single company.