Information Society Watch
A Southern Lens on the Information SocietyIndia: War of formats - India shows thumbs-down to Microsoft
August 24, 2007, The Economic Times
In a major setback for Microsoft, the Indian government has decided to vote against Microsoft's OOXML standard at the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in Geneva on September 2. This decision of the Indian government came after a high level committee meeting decided that the standard did not make the grade. The Open document (ODL) standard which is a well recognised open standards initiative , welcomed the decision and added that they had no problem in accepting OOXML as an open standard if it (OOXML) resolved the 200 technical issues which would then make it truly open. What is most interesting however is the fact that there are strong indications that Brazil which is has been a leading champion of open standards may abstain from voting and that may tilt the balance in favour of Microsoft.