Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML)
document
format standard has finally gained approval as an
ISO standard, according to an
official announcement from the standards body today.
Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft UK’s national technology officer, said that while
Microsoft was pleased with the outcome, it would benefit others more, “it’s a
particularly good day for our customers and partners”. He added these
organisations were keen for OOXML to gain ISO approval as a way of ensuring that
“their data remains under their control”.
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Fishenden said Microsoft would now focus on working to ensure its Office
applications and translator tools between OOXML and the rival Open Document
Format were compatible with the final approved standard documentation.
The outcome follows a week-long meeting in late February, where national
standards bodies met to thrash out issues with the technical specification, and
a previous negative vote last September.
National standards bodies had until 29 March to resubmit their votes on OOXML
in this new round of voting. According to the ISO, three-quarters of
participating standards bodies voted to approve the document format, while only
14 percent of votes were negative.
During the previous round of voting, only 53 per cent voted in favour of the
standard, while 26 per cent of votes were negative. Denmark, the UK and the
Czech Republic were among those countries that changed their votes from negative
to positive this time round.
New Zealand was one of the few countries that maintained its negative vote.
Debbie Chin, chief executive at Standards New Zealand, explained, “Our role
is to ensure that overall New Zealanders will benefit from publication of a
particular standard and in this case it was clear that while some would benefit,
there would be others who would be disadvantaged. A major concern is the
expected increase in costs for government agencies that would result from the
specification being adopted as an ISO/IEC international standard. Cost increases
for government agencies ultimately impact all New Zealanders.”
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