Office Open XML Officially Approved As International Standard

15 April 2008

The much-debated and disputed open document standard Office Open XML (OOXML) has been approved by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The result of the voting showed 24 supporting votes by participating national standards bodies allowed to vote, known as �p-members,� versus eight opposing votes.

ISO Geneva Headquarters

None of the countries of region were on the `p-members` list and were not required to vote. Some of them did vote anyway, apart from Montenegro, which is still just an associate member and has only observed the process.

Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina voted for OOXML to be accepted. Miroslava Filipovic, the coordinator of the Serbian Technical Committee says that their colleagues from Montenegro also supported the `yes` vote. She also noted that a lot of lobbying was done during the review process, by both business and political interests.

By the time this article was written, we didn�t manage to contact the responsible persons with Croatian and Macedonian standards bodies. There is, however, enough circumstantial evidence, like the fact that the opponents of OOXML intend to appeal the Croatian vote, to prove that Croatia also voted for Microsoft`s open document standard.

As far as Macedonia is concerned, we haven�t been able to get a confirmation on its vote. What we know is that the national standards authority was unable to establish the technical committee, in spite of repeated efforts, because representatives of both of the ICT business sector and the civil society were not interested in the initiative proposed by the Standards Institute.

Among non-p-members, just 14% of the national bodies voted against OOXML being adopted as international standard (read in more detail at IP Watch).

Critics have argued that Microsoft has failed to publish sufficient documentation about OOXML for it to be considered a truly open standard. According to APC`s Grant McHerron, in APC�s forum on the news of the adoption of the standard, there are a number of proprietary components in OOXML that are not properly documented and people will `have to go to Microsoft to secure full compatibility`.

- Microsoft say they won`t hold proprietary information against people but, as with JPG & GIF, standards can be held to ransom over patents & such after they become widely used, adds McHerron in his comment.

Microsoft`s apparent victory before the ISO could be subject to appeal (read the report at Groklaw). ISO approval of OOXML comes amid widespread allegations that Microsoft improperly tried to influence voting and the EU is investigating the process.

The chairman of a Norwegian technology committee has already filed a protest against his country`s decision and questions have also been raised about the voting process in Germany, Croatia, and several other countries, including allegations of coercion and bribery of national standards body members.

We also learned that the Serbian Technical committee was, in fact, chaired by the head of Microsoft`s Serbian Office Dejan Cvetkovic, although, in all fairness, he had no right to vote.

The stakes are high. OOXML is the default file format for Microsoft Office 2007 applications, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. The ISO recognition of OOXML could open the door to lucrative government, non-profit and educational markets for Office 2007.

It could give the company a new leverage in a number of decisions and litigations over lost government contracts that were awarded to its competitors, in which the authorities and courts decided that Microsoft�s claims were unfound because ODF, used by the competition, was the international standard.

Microsoft has never been shy from throwing its weight around. Only recently, it threatened Yahoo! With a war if the latter decided against the proposed merger.

- In a nutshell, it lets Microsoft keep being the big bad bully of the software world and also discredits the ISO. Instead of having to compete in an open/level environment, they ensure the balance stays tipped in their favour, concluded McHerron.

Not everything went Microsoft`s way. An ominous sign for Microsoft`s growth prospects in emerging regions, countries that represent the world`s fastest growing tech markets, such as Brazil, India and China, voted against accepting the company\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s latest Microsoft Office document format as an international standard. Russia was the only member of the so-called BRIC nations to vote in favour of ISO ratification for OOXML.