Information Society Watch

April 2, 2008, Kevin J. O'Brien, New York Times

In a reversal of its loss in September, Microsoft has won approval by the International Organisation for Standardisation for its Office Open XML (OOXML), a format for interchangeable Web documents. The international standards designation for OOXML will have important effects on software spending by governments and large companies. In the final round of voting, three-quarters of the core group members of the ISO, including Britain, Japan, Germany and Switzerland, supported Microsoft's standard. Brazil, Canada, India and South Africa were among the ten countries who opposed the standard. Members of the ISO and others have expressed concern about Microsoft's tactics to push for speedy approval of its standard, as well as confusion resulting from the coexistence of OOXML and the existing Open Document Format (ODF) that was designated a standard by ISO in 2006.

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