Microsoft supported format Office Open XML (OOXML) did not received a positive vote in the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) ballot that ended on 2 September 2007, failing to achieve the number of votes necessary for its approval as a standard.

Open Office XML is a XML-based file format specification for electronic documents, developed by Microsoft and sent to Ecma International, an international, private standards organization, to be published as the Ecma 376 standard in December 2006. Ecma International submit it to ISO for adoption as an International Standard, through the "fast-track procedure".

Microsoft OOXML claims there is a strong international support for its adoption as an International standard: " The Ecma Office Open XML file formats are being rapidly adopted across multiple platforms and products from a wide range of IT vendors, creating real value for IT users around the globe. (...) As well, the open standard has also been gaining broad adoption across the software industry for use on a variety of platforms - including Linux, Windows, Mac OS and the Palm OS. "

However a strong oposition has started to come up as well, complaining about a number of problems with the draft standard, including the existance of a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF), unprovable implementation of the OOXML specification, information missing from the specification and even that is the lack of any guarantee that somebody can write software that fully or partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft.

The opposition concentrated around website noooxml.org tried to present these concerns to the national members of ISO in order for them to vote "NO". Also an online petition raised more than 45 000 votes against this adoption.

But the decisive vote in the approval of the draft standard ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Information technology - Office Open XML file formats was reserved to the IEC and ISO national member bodies from 104 countries, including 41 that are participating members of the joint ISO/IEC technical committee, JTC 1 Information technology.

In order to be approved the standard needed the get at least 2/3 of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive and no more than ¼ of the total number of national body votes cast negative.

The five-month process ended on 2 September 2007 and neither of the criteria was met - just 53% of the votes from the national bodies part of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 were positive and 26% of the national votes were negative.

This means that the standard will not be approved as suggested and a new meeting, called ballot resolution meeting, will be organized by the relevant subcommittee of ISO/IEC JTC 1 in February 2008 trying to "review and seek consensus on possible modifications to the document in light of the comments received along with the votes. If the proposed modifications are such that national bodies then wish to withdraw their negative votes, and the above acceptance criteria are then met, the standard may proceed to publication", as the ISO press release explains.

It seems unlikely that the February 2008 meeting will actually reach a consensus taking into consideration the various comments on the draft standard, but also the growing opposition from some important states, such as Great Britain, France, Korea or even Ireland, despite the optimistic approach of the Microsoft team. In this case the fast-track procedure will be terminated, but the draft standard could be re-submitted under the normal ISO/IEC standards development rules.

Another possible way forward, as suggested by the standards organizations of New Zealand or France could be to publish the MS-OOXML specification as an ISO/IEC technical report and not as an international standard. This will provide all member countries more time to work on the specification.

Vote closes on draft ISO/IEC DIS 29500 standard (4.09.2007)
http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070

Results of the OOXML Ballot of 2nd September
http://www.noooxml.org/ballotresults

Next steps for the OOXML standard (5.09.2007)
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/09/05/next_steps_for_the_o...

Microsoft's OpenXML misses out (for now) on approval as ISO standard (6.09.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/95564

Strong Global Support for Open XML as It Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards Process (4.09.2007)
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/s...

NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard
http://www.noooxml.org/petition