Tuesday, September 04, 2007

ISO say no to MOO-XML

The Microsoft Office file format which Microsoft fought (in a very dirty fashion) to fast track to ISO standard status has been rejected:

Groklaw - The results of the ISO voting: Office Open XML is Disapproved

... but only for now. It seems Microsoft are confident that they can sufficiently influence the next committee in the chain to give their proprietary format "standard" status.

The standards process has taken an awful toll in all this. I am sure that many national standards bodies will be asking themselves how they can avoid being manipulated by companies like Microsoft in the future.

I hope ISO as a whole are now on guard for more ballot stuffing and other dirty tactics as Microsoft desperately try to keep their office product as the lock-in cash cow it is today. MOO-XML indeed.

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