The International
Organization for Standardization's approval
of Microsoft's OOXML as an international standard is just the beginning
of what could be a lengthy process before the file format can be widely and
successfully implemented for exchanging documents, according to critics and
supporters of OOXML.

For some, who have criticized Microsoft's now-successful attempt to fast-track
Office Open XML as an ISO standard from the start, it seemed appropriate that
the company confirmed OOXML's ratification on April Fools' Day.

But to others -- including Microsoft -- the approval of OOXML was a win for
giving software developers and business users, particularly those in government
agencies, choice about which standard file format they want to use for exchanging
electronic documents.

Though official results about the vote aren't due from the ISO until Wednesday,
Microsoft and a number of other sources confirmed Tuesday that 86 percent of
the countries voting on OOXML had said "yes."

To Tom Robertson, general manager of Microsoft interoperability and standards,
this proves that "the global community has now embraced Open XML."
He said the approval means that OOXML "will be widely used for years to
come in every country in the world" as a standard for document exchange.

To some others, however, including open-standards advocates and supporters
of Open Document Format for XML (ODF), a rival document format that preceded
OOXML to ISO approval, the global community is still not ready to envelop OOXML
in a warm and fuzzy hug. The final vote had barely been tallied before there
were reports of irregularities and the possibility of national bodies changing
"yes" votes due to protests from committee members unhappy with the
outcome.

Protests over the ISO voting process and outcomes are not uncommon, said Jan
van den Beld, ISO-process consultant for CompTIA and former secretary general
of Ecma, who encouraged Microsoft to fast-track OOXML through Ecma to the ISO.
This is particularly true because the ISO does not oversee each country's individual
standards body and lets the national standards agencies set their own rules
for voting on standards. "There's no general set of rules that each country
is using," he said.

Still, even by standards voting, the OOXML vote has been particularly contentious,
with both sides slinging mud for the better part of two years over first the
Ecma, and then the ISO processes.

For example, not even two days after the final voting ended over the weekend,
members of the Norwegian committee, which officially changed a previous "no,
with comments" vote to "yes," asked that country's Ministry of
Trade and Industry to investigate the voting process, claiming that 80 percent
of committee members

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