Microsoft OOXML approval put on hold
Following appeals by four countries including India, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has put its earlier decision approving Microsoft’s Open Office OXML (OOXML) file format as an international standard, on hold
By ET Bureau |
Following appeals by four countries including India, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has put its earlier decision approving Microsoft���s Open Office OXML (OOXML) file format as an international standard, on hold. OOXML is a format for word-processing documents, presentations and spreadsheets.
The other countries that appealed against the ISO decision are Brazil, South Africa and Venezuela. In April, OOXML was approved as an ISO/International Electrotechnical Commission International Standard, having received the mandated over two-third votes of participating members.
���The fact that these countries have appealed against the OOXML after ISO���s approval in April clearly shows the opposition to it. India has repeatedly voted against the proprietary format. However, the country was not even allowed to present all its comments against OOXML at the ballot resolution meeting (BRM) at Geneva last year.
All this has put a question mark on the credibility of ISO,��� said a member of the Bureau of Indian Standards committee which was responsible for examining the standard and deciding India���s position at ISO.
The appeals by the four countries are being considered by the ISO secretary general and the IEC general secretary, who will, by June-end , submit the appeals with their comments to the ISO Technical Management Board and the IEC Standardisation Management Board.
The two boards will then decide whether the appeals should be further processed or not. If the appeals are further processed, a conciliation panel would be established to resolve the appeals . The process could take several months and till it���s over, the Open Office XML format can���t be published as an international standard.
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OOXML was originally disapproved in a ���fast-track vote��� in September 2007. It was followed, as required under the rules, by a BRM at Geneva in February this year to address comments made by voting members. Download
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