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04-01-2011, 01:03 PM
Although ISO isn;t set to announce the official voting tally until tomorrow, the OpenDoc Society has posted to a mailing listing what it statements are the final results indicating that Microsoft is going to be granted ISO approval for its Office Open XML (OOXML) document format.According to the alleged results page, OOXML obtained a seventy five percent “approve” total. It needed 66.66 % to become an ISO standard. Here is the alleged ISO ballot information on OOXML (zipped PDF file).ISO officials aren;t commenting on the leaked ballot tally. Nor is Microsoft. ISO officials said on March 31 that they planned to notify privately the national bodies who participated in the standards vote before publicizing the ultimate outcomes on April 2.Update: Microsoft is now confirming (in a rather long-winded way) that OOXML won the vote for ISO standards approval. From the company;s April 1 press release: “While the final vote has not yet been announced formally, publicly available information shows overwhelming support for Open XML. Based on documents available on the Internet,Microsoft Office 2007 Pro Plus cl�� (http://www.microsoftoffice2007key.net/), 86% of all national body members support ISO/IEC standardization, well above the 75% requirement for formal acceptance under ISO and IEC rules. In addition, 75% of the Participating national body members (known as P-members) support standardization, also well above the required 66.67% requirement for this group. “Open XML, IS29500, now joins HTML,Microsoft Office 2007 Activation cl�� (http://www.microsoftoffice2007key.net/), PDF and ODF as ISO- and IEC-recognized open document format standards. “The ratification of Open XML is proof that the consensus-building process worked.”OOXML is currently an ECMA standard. Microsoft has been advocating for OOXML to receive ISO standard status, as that is seen as more of a “gold” standard by many governments when evaluating standards compliance of new software.In a note sent to its mailing record recipients, OpenDoc Society Board Member Michiel Leenaars portrayed the alleged OOXML victory as having “minimal”impact on OOXML vs. Open Document Format (ODF) adoption. Leenaars wrote:“OOXML which was submitted by Microsoft to ECMA,Office Pro 2007 clave (http://www.office2007key.eu/), and by ECMA to ISO, has literally crawled through the needles eye. After a year of discussion and repairs it still receives the very minimum of support. The BRM convinced some yet unconvinced others,Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 (http://wwww.office2007key.eu/), and counter votes from large countries like China, India, Brazil, Canada, South Africa and Iran speak volumes. This must be one of the worst results ever for a standard to pass within ISO/JTC1 in years.“Appartently (sic) the chair from the Norwegian comitte(e) has filed a protest against the national outcome. Though one vote would not make much difference,Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 (http://wwww.msoffice2007key.com/), others may follow.”(Thanks to ITWire for the link to the mailing checklist post.)Update on April 2: Here;s the official ISO statement on OOXML obtaining standards approval.