One analyst said the state's interest in a plug-in, especially one that would work with the unreleased Office 2007, is the strongest sign yet of a weakening of ex-CIO Quinn's explicitly pro-open-source agenda. "I don't necessarily believe that the plug-in would 'kill' OpenOffice adoption, but it does go a long way towards negating one pressing impetus for the state of Massachusetts," said Laura DiDio, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc.

But another analyst, Joe Wilcox of Jupiter Research, said that the plug-in "does not change the state's standard for open documents. So far, I don't think they are backing away."

Gary Edwards, a Redwood City, Calif., programmer and co-founder of OpenDocument Foundation Inc., said the plug-in is meant to enable fed-up users of Office products to switch to alternatives such as Sun Microsystem Inc.'s StarOffice, IBM's Workplace or OpenOffice, which its developers claim has been downloaded 63 million times.

"They may have looked at installing OpenOffice, but for many it's too disruptive," he said. The plug-in "is like a key that unlocks them from Microsoft Office and lets them take the first step sideways towards OpenOffice."

Massachusetts' attempts to implement its technology plan is being closely watched worldwide as a test case by governments and other organizations looking to adopt the OpenDocument standard, which was accepted last week by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).