Editor's Note: Seattle-based investigative reporter and data journalist Daniel Lathrop, digital strategist for Investigate West and our former Seattle P-I colleague, is in Washington, D.C., this week for the Gov 2.0 Summit. He'll be filing reports for TechFlash and sent us this initial post on Microsoft's efforts there.

Today's Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase, the prelude to this week's more exclusive Gov 2.0 "Summit" in D.C. shows that Microsoft is pouring some real effort into its Open Government efforts, sponsoring the conferences and lining up top Microsoft people to speak about the importance of open, accessible government technology and data.

That includes this afternoon's panel discussion with Lewis Shepherd of the Microsoft Institute for Advanced Technology in Governments. It's also a "Founding Sponsor" of the event, the most expensive level of sponsorship, and paid for a one-page white paper on Open Government to be distributed to every registrant.

Microsoft's role is key in the future of government openness since most government agencies use at least some, and often only, Microsoft technology. At the same time, some agencies have been migrating away from Microsoft software in part because of concerns about its proprietary technologies and formats.

Details on what Sheppard has to say when he says it.

Full disclosure: Daniel Lathrop's book on Gov 2.0 is being published in January by O'Reilly Media, the conference organizer. Follow him on Twitter @lathropd and contact him at dlathrop@invw.org.