To realise the full potential of e-government, public administrations must ensure that their information is accessible to all as a necessary first step to improving interaction with citizens and business.

In this role, the public sector must avoid using products or formats for documents that force users to have a given product to interact.

eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based applications separate content, structure, semantics and presentation. This allows electronic text to be moved from one hardware and software environment to another without loss of information. While the public sector should eventually make use of XML-based document formats, importance must be placed on standardisation to ensure market access to industry actors.

Standardisation efforts promise a fair and competitive market for industry, safeguard interoperability and preserve competition and innovation. Industry examples include the Sun-supported OpenOffice.org format and Microsoft’s WordML specifications. They could be used as a basis for consensus within OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured In-formation Standards) and formal standardisation bodies and could lead to an Open Office Standard that would lay the foundation for effective interoperability.