Microsoft's OOXML gets ISO nod

* 75% participating member votes said 'Yes'

* 14% national member body votes said 'No'


After nearly 14 months of discussion, debate and controversies surrounding them, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has finally declared that Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) file format has received the necessary number of votes for approval as an ISO/IEC international standard.

Approval required at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 per cent) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in the joint technical committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 per cent) of the total number of ISO/IEC national body votes cast to be negative. These criteria have been met.

ISO/IEC DIS 29500 was originally disapproved in the "fast-track vote" which ended in September 2007, when 3,500 comments were received. However, under the rules of ISO/IEC JTC 1, the DIS vote was followed by a ballot resolution meeting (BRM) at which the comments were addressed. After the meeting, the ISO/IEC national bodies had 30 days to modify their votes if they wished. The BRM was held in Geneva during the week 25-29 February 2008. By eliminating redundancies, the comments had been reduced to 1,000 individual issues to be considered.

There has, perhaps, never been a more intense global industry debate over standards. On the one hand, OOXML is backed by Apple, Novell, and closer home by Wipro, Infosys, TCS, and Nasscom. On the other, ODF is supported by the likes of IBM, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Google, and in India, by the Department of Information Technology (DIT), National Informatics Centre (NIC), CDAC, IIT-Mumbai and IIM-Ahmedabad.