Microsoft wins OOXML Standardization

Votes have been cast and counted and the results are in favor of Microsoft, as OOXML gets declared an ISO standard. But, Microsoft still cannot be at ease since it must get through a two month period when national bodies are allowed to lodge any formal appeals before the standard moves to official publication.

“Subject to there being no formal from ISO/IEC national bodies in the nest two months,” the text of the standard will be published as ISO/IEC 29500, ISO said on Wednesday.

In a press release issued by the Geneva-based International Standards Organization (ISO), the details of the ballot showed that Microsoft’s OOXML received 75 percent approval and 14 percent disapproval votes.

Nine nations with full voting rights declined to vote. They were Australia, Belgium, France, Ital, Kenya, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Spain and Turkey. Previously, Kenya, and Turkey had voted “yes, with comments.”

Two-thirds approval and not more than 25 percent disapproval was required to pass.

According to Section 11 of the ISO/IEC JTC1 directives, if an appeal is made to the Joint Technical Committee of ISO (JTC1) by any of the National Standards Organizations, Microsoft might have to wait for several months till the appeal is heard.

Only the 41 countries who participated in the development of the standard, called the P-members, are allowed to appeal against the actions of the committee.

An attempt to counter must be accompanied with verification that an action is either not in accordance with the JTC1 directives, or is not in best interests of international trade and commerce, or public factors like safety, health and environment.

Originally, Microsoft had submitted the Open XML file formats to standards organization Ecma International in 2005. Ecma then proposed the specification to ISO in its Fast Track process, which was deemed by many to be too fast for a complicated specification.

Open-source advocates were against the idea since they feared that standards status would give Microsoft more market power.

Norway had lodged a complaint on Saturday saying that the yes vote did not reflect the opposition of the majority of the committee. However, ISO spokesperson Roger Frost on Tuesday said that the organization has not received a complaint from its Norwegian ISO member.