Several developments involving the power of the public purse that should speed the uptake of open standards like ODF in the public sector.

NL: Government instructs itself to use open standards
The Dutch government published instructions making open-standards based procurement the default, a policy which has been in force since 1 April 2008. According to the announcement made on November 24, 2008 by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, this means in principle that for public purchases of IT worth more than 50,000 euro, the use of open standards such as ODF - official listed as one of the approved open standards - is now mandatory for government bodies in the public and semi-public sectors ("comply or explain” why not).  Noteworthy is the European Commission’s seal of approval on the open-standards procurement plan as consistent with the EU’s competition and single-market rules.

DCOS Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards
The Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) approved and called on like-minded organizations to endorse the Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards. The agreement calls on governments, publicly funded and non-profit institutions to, among other actions, create a policy statement on interoperability and open standards, and, by 2010, agree that procurement of all software should be vendor neutral and implement open standards.