Governments are asked by Microsoft to offer choice between multiple standards. In other words it means that a decision on the use of standards will be made on a hierarchical level where the public procurement agency can exercise less power.
On the other hand it is notable that the choice propaganda is just unilateral. Microsoft does not offer customers of their products to choose between ODF and OOXML. Yes, I know there is a plugin, but it does not count as it's no native support.
"We don’t think ODF is good enough for our users,"
is Tom Robertson (Microsoft) quoted.
"Uniformity is not always a good thing," said Tsilas. "At the end of the day, we should have a more dynamic market, and live in a world of ‘and,’ not ‘either/or.’"
So why doesn't the vendor offer its customers the choice in its own Office products? The fact is that governments who deliberately choose ODF will force Microsoft to offer more choice.
The way Microsoft has set up the playing field, there is indeed some real choice for end users here, and that is: do you a) want to keep using MS Office and be locked into using only Microsoft Office, or do you b) want to use anything else except MS Office and be able to switch between alternatives without problems? The answer to that question just might not be what Microsoft expects.