Microsoft’s Open XML reportedly comes up short on ‘standardization’ vote
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Sep 4, 2007 at 10:06am
Microsoft’s effort to standardize its Open XML document formats through the “fast track” process at the International Organization for Standardization failed in a vote that ended over the weekend, according to people familiar with the voting.
An official word from the ISO on the vote on Open XML is expected later on Tuesday, ISO communications manager Roger Frost told CNET. according to an industry insider familiar with the results, Open XML failed to get sufficient number of votes to ratify the document formats through its accelerated “fast track” process.
A tally indicates that Open XML did not get the two thirds majority needed from “participating” members in the ISO, with 17 voting yes and 15 voting no, the person said. With both classes of voters included, 51 people voted yes, with 18 voting no and 18 abstaining, the person said.
Meanwhile, the British Standards Institution has sent its response to the International Organization for Standardization on the subject of whether Microsoft Office Open XML should be certified with the ISO, but has refused to say whether it voted “yes,” “no” or “abstain.”
BSI did say in a statement, however, that it had “identified a number of technical issues in the document which need to be addressed before the U.K. can approve” Office Open XML as an international standard, notes CNET.
Open XML is the default file-saving format in Microsoft Office 2007. Opponents of making it a standard feel there’s no need for a rival standard to the widely used Open Document Format (ODF) that is already an international standard. They argue its 6,000 pages of code, compared with ODF’s 860 pages, make it artificially complicated and untranslatable. Microsoft and others point out that multiple standards are normal in the software and other industries and that competition makes for better products. Microsoft says its format has higher specifications and is more useful than ODF.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
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