Massachusetts Appoints Acting CIO

Massachusetts secretary of administration and finance Thomas Trimarco has appointed Bethann Pepoli acting CIO of the state's Information Technology Division, according to published reports. Pepoli has served as chief operating officer of the division.

The previous head of the division, Peter Quinn, resigned the position after spearheading the state's effort to adopt the OpenDocument format (ODF) as its official office software standard. In the meantime, the state is continuing its search for a permanent replacement for Quinn.

The state is scheduled to adopt ODF in January 2007, but Microsoft has opposed the move, and Trimarco has been sympathetic to Microsoft's position. Before the state could take any action on Microsoft's position, however, it will have to wait for the ECMA international standards body to approve Microsoft's submission and that is likely to take several months.