Summary: Man behind decision favouring Microsoft lock-in (OOXML) has history working with Microsoft in Australia; he hits the escape button now that he's exposed

IN IRC logs which we shall post tomorrow it came up -- via an Australia reader -- that government entryism may provide a simpler explanation (however partial) for the bizarre decision made in Australia, regarding document formats [1, 2, 3].

Brett Winterford, who carried water for OOXML after Microsoft had given him free trips abroad [1, 2], has this update regarding the situation. He says that "a select few of AGIMO's choices rang alarm bells - no more so that the choice of the ECMA376 version of Microsoft's OOXML as a standard word processing format.

"The iTnews report highlighting this part of the policy has attracted international attention.

"AGIMO first assistant secretary John Sheridan was surprised by the reaction. He said the draft of the policy document had been produced on AGIMO's blog in July 2010 - missed by the staff at iTnews - and had subsequently received zero submissions."

This does not say anything about John Sheridan, who is now "First Assistant Secretary Agency Services at Australian Government Information Management Office". Brandon shows us his LinkedIn page and says "this explains the OOXML in Australia" as between August 2008 and December 2008 (5 months) Sheridan was "ICT Coordinated Procurement Contracting Arrangements (Microsoft Volume Sourcing Agreement)" (that was right after ISO had rubber-stamped OOXML).

The Australian government did nothing to ensure people were informed until a report came from an investigative journalist. Sheridan does some damage control now and Brandon concludes by saying: "if you don't want OOXML in Australia now is your chance"

As regular readers may know, we gave many examples of people who work in governments while having vested interests that promote Microsoft. Here is one recent example. Those who have followed the OOXML corruption train since 2006 will know that the above is the norm rather than the exception and as a preview of an exposé to come we'll just show the following screenshot (of a man who is AstroTurfing under pseudonyms and then hides, once exposed). There will be an article about that soon. ⬆