ISO To Announce Microsoft Open XML Result Wednesday
Delegations from as many as 87 nations were expected to have cast ballots by a deadline Saturday with the International Organization for Standardization, the standards-setting body in Geneva whose ISO designation could influence software purchasing by some governments and large businesses.
Advocates and opponents of Microsoft's proposed standard, Office Open XML, or OOXML, declined Friday to predict the outcome, and an unofficial tally by the Malaysian delegation showed the result as too close to call. An ISO spokeswoman, Sandrine Tranchard, said her group would publish official results early this week.
Industry experts said the outcome of the vote on the 6,000-page OOXML specification, which was steeped in arcane technical debate over software coding and licensing, could have commercial ramifications for Microsoft, as well as for International Business Machines and Sun Microsystems, which helped develop a rival technology called OpenDocument Format, or ODF.
ODF is so far the only interchangeable document format bearing an ISO standard, an endorsement that its backers have used to promote the technology to governments and businesses around the world. The ODF format, available at www.OpenOffice.org, lets users save text and spreadsheet documents in many formats, including Microsoft's.
Microsoft, facing increasing client demands for interchangeable formats, responded by developing OOXML, but initially did not let users save documents as ODF files. Microsoft eventually relented and financed a free software add-on that enabled OOXML users to save documents in the rival format. OOXML was designated a European standard in December 2006 by a Geneva group called ECMA, formerly known as the European Computer Manufacturers Association.
Through ECMA, Microsoft sought fast-track approval from the...