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September 4, 2007

French blow for Microsoft's Office Open XML

France says no to standard, Australia abstains

Peter Sayer

France has voted against the adoption of Microsoft's document format Office Open XML as an international standard, while Australia has decided to abstain.

UPDATE:

See - Microsoft says second vote will result in approval.

Microsoft offered its OOXML specification to standards body ECMA last year, paving the way for the file format to be fast-tracked through the International Organization for Standardization's approvals process.

If enough other national standards bodies have voted the same way as those of France, India and Brazil, and OOXML is not approved as an international standard, Microsoft could miss out on revenue from the lucrative government market.

A number of governments, worried that the need for access to electronic archives in proprietary formats leaves them hostage to their software vendor, have mandated the use of document formats that comply with open international standards.

Others are considering such a move, which could put Microsoft at a double disadvantage to open-source products such as OpenOffice.org, which not only store files in the standardised Open Document Format, but are free.

The French Association for Standardization, Afnor, announced on Monday that it had informed the International Organization for Standardization of its 'no' vote on the proposal to make Microsoft's OOXML format an ISO standard.

ISO had asked national standards bodies around the world to give their verdict on OOXML by September 2, and is in the process of counting the votes submitted. It will announce the result by Wednesday, officials say. Afnor had declined to announce its decision until ISO had received all votes.

Standards Australia, the Australian national standards body, announced on Monday that it had abstained from the vote, after its members failed to reach a consensus.

The Swedish body last week annulled its vote in favour of adoption of the standard when it transpired that a Microsoft employee had pressured partners of the company to vote to support it. The US standards body INCITS, however, has voted in favour of adopting OOXML as a standard.

(With additional reporting by Bertrand Lemaire in Paris.)

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Comments received


Ado said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

I'm not sure if this is good or bad news. I don't think it will have that big of an impact on them money wise.

nb said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

There is nothing to stop them from implementing ODF, a legitimate ISO standard. It should be blatently obvious that they feel it advantageous to own a standard and are desperate (embarrassingly so) to have this pass. In my opinion, this is highly suspicious and makes them all the more untrustworthy. This should be a reminder to the world that they are a convicted criminal organization and appear to not have been reformed one iota.

Xavier said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

If it is another CSV format that changes whenever MS wants or the bloated xml format we fill our drives with, im glad it's not coming...

Omega said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

Microsoft should not be allowed to force proprietary formats onto governments - causing dependence on their software.

Duh.

John said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

Vive la France, they (ahem, we) love to complain and say no, c'est comme ça!

John
www.gigatribe.com

MB said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

Vive La France!
Microsoft MUST be forced to comply with real open (and free) standard formats. That will be the only way them (MS) will be forced to COMPETE in a FAIR way with the rest of the world, instead of using dirty tricks, heavy lobbying, intimidation, extortion-like and unfair business practices.
Vive la liberté!

Ctrl-Alt-Del said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

Microsoft is playing "stupid" about Open formats. A real open format must have FREEDOM all over it, so NOBODY would be LOCKED IN by them, or anybody else, for that matter. Historically, MS has changed formats several times, achieving a high number of DIGITAL HOSTAGES (which they call "market share", which is not) over the years.
Enough is enough.

George said on Tuesday, 04 September 2007

Biased towards Microsoft while disregarding facts

Harry Hobson said on Wednesday, 05 September 2007

It is pretty obvious that MS is wanting control, which the governments do not want. It would be better for an international body come up with specification and then let software companies write applications that service the specification.

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