[LINK] Office 'Open' XML

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

> Microsoft Favored to Win Open Document Vote 
> K. O’BRIEN www.nytimes.com September 4, 2007

ISO votes to reject Microsoft's OOXML as standard

<http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,136711-page,1/article.html>
Peter Sayer Tuesday, September 04, 2007 5:10 AM PDT

Microsoft Corp. has failed in its attempt to have its Office Open XML 
document format fast-tracked straight to the status of an international 
standard by the International Organization for Standardization. 

The proposal must now be revised to take into account the negative 
comments made during the voting process.

Microsoft expects that a second vote early next year will result in 
approval, it said Tuesday.

A proposal must pass two voting hurdles in order to be approved as an ISO 
standard: it must win the support of two-thirds of voting national 
standards bodies that participated in work on the proposal, known as P-
members, and also of three-quarters of all voting members. 

OOXML failed on both counts, according to figures provided by Microsoft, 
and by other sources with knowledge of the voting process. ISO has not yet 
officially announced the results.

Microsoft could miss out on revenue from the lucrative government market 
if OOXML is also rejected next year. Some governments, worried that the 
need for access to electronic archives held in proprietary formats leaves 
them hostage to their software vendor, have mandated the use of document 
formats that comply with open international standards. 

Others are considering such a move, which could put Microsoft at a double 
disadvantage to open source products such as OpenOffice.org, which not 
only store files natively in the standardized Open Document Format, but 
are free.


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