by By Martin LaMonica, CNET News.com

Massachusetts will begin using OpenDocument as the default document format later this year as planned, but it will be sticking with Microsoft Office in the near term, the state's top technology executive said.

As expected, Louis Gutierrez, chief information officer of Massachusetts' Information Technology Division, on Wednesday sent a letter seen by CNET News.com to advocates of people with disabilities. The letter was in response to their concerns about the commonwealth's plan to move to the OpenDocument format, or ODF, standard.

In addition, Gutierrez last week wrote to the state's Information Technology Advisory Board with an update on the OpenDocument format implementation plan, as had been planned.