Most people will be unaware that the Cabinet Office is currently in consultation over an Open Standards Policy
(http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards). A policy for introducing Open Source operating systems and software into government departments has the potential to save the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds in license fees and royalty payments to companies such as Microsoft. Last year there was a definition for a standard document format that would have paved the way for acceptance of the Open Document Format as the standard but this was dropped after Microsoft suggested that their OOXML document standard should also be considered (http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/open-standards-open-source/). This despite that fact that it cannot be opened by the leading Open Source office suit Open Office.org. Microsoft have also browbeaten the ISO into accepting OOXML as an open document standard alongside the Open Document Format despite it not being "Open"! If Microsoft's stranglehold on the computer industry is not broken and OOXML is included in the Open Standards Policy the UK tax payer will be needlessly spending millions on computer software for decades to come. This money could be better spent on important services such as the NHS.