Stories by Elizabeth Montalbano

Now that Google has reached its 10-year-mark, the company is facing the cultural complexities and challenges that come with the transition from hip startup to corporate giant.

The International Organization for Standardization's approval of Microsoft's OOXML as an international standard is just the beginning of what could be a lengthy process before the file format can be widely and successfully implemented for exchanging documents, according to critics and supporters of OOXML.

Microsoft's quest to have Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as a global technology standard seems to have recovered from a setback it suffered a week ago, as both sides of the Open XML-ODF debate shore up arguments as the final vote to approve Open XML nears.

Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the ODF Alliance, an international group of organizations dedicated to promoting Open Document format for XML (ODF) as an international standard for document formats. But while the group has encouraged public agencies across the world to enact policies to support open IT standards over the last year, ODF supporters have more work to do to increase the adoption of alternatives to Microsoft's Office suite, industry watchers said.

Several of Microsoft's Windows platform products have achieved a Common Criteria certification of 4+, a rating that bolsters their profile among government and other vertical-market customers that have high-security needs for IT products, a company spokesman said Wednesday.

Debate among Massachusetts government officials may throw a wrench in a state proposal to migrate away from Microsoft's Office productivity suite in favor of software that supports an open-document format.

Readers of FoxNews.com have blasted a Sept. 30 column criticizing Massachusetts' decision to support an open document format for its published documents, a move that would limit or even eliminate the use of Microsoft's Office software in state government agencies.

Massachusetts unveiled plans to phase out Microsoft's Office in favor of office productivity suites that support an open-document format from the OASIS standards body, according to a statement on the commonwealth's Web site.