No Approval for OOXML

The vote to approve Office Open XML format, the format that Microsoft has incorporated into Office 2007, and has been trying so hard to push through as a standard failed to get the needed votes for approval.

There are two standards for approval by ISO, and the vote failed to gain either approval method.

After a revelation last week that Microsoft had monetarily enticed several voting members, it was looking certain that approval was going to be had. It seems that there was a backlash stemming from that news, and several countries that had been tentatively put into the ‘yes’ column either voted no or abstained.

In depth:

The actual numbers for the final tally are now what you could rightly call “encouraging.”  All 41 P members voted, with the following breakdown:  17 yes, 15 no, and 9 abstain.  A 66 2/3% majority was required, after subtracting abstentions.  Instead, only a 53.12% approval was achieved, after abstentions, and 41% before abstentions were subtracted.

On the second test, a perhaps unprecedented 87 National Bodies voted, including Full Members that were not JTC1 members, as well as P (Participating) and O (Observer) members of JTC1.  Out of this pool, 69 voted yes or no (abstentions are disregarded for this test as well), with 18 voting no, or 26.08%, thus failing the second test (no more than 25% of the total of all eligible yes and no votes can be no votes).

Microsoft released a notice making it look as though they had won approval, while in the finer print allowing that it did not happen. While this should be the end of this push, it undoubtedly will not be. It will come up again, at the first opportunity Microsoft has to start the push once again.

[tags] ISO, Open Office XML formats, Microsoft, spin doctors [/tags]