InternetISO Dissenters Fire Back at Microsoft Decision

A handful of nations blast the standards body, claiming that they're no longer confident that it's a vendor-neutral organization.

A decision to dismiss appeals against the controversial fast-track approval of a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) document format has provoked six members of global standards-setting body ISO to question ISO's relevance. Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela -- countries with fast-growing IT markets -- had appealed against ISO's stamp of approval for Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML), an endorsement likely to help the software giant win more public-sector contracts. A significant minority of national standards bodies had voted against approving the Microsoft format, which is an alternative to the open-source Open Document Format that has been a published ISO standard since 2006. But ISO, together with the International Electrotechnical Commission, decided earlier this month that those appeals were not worth pursuing -- meaning OOXML will soon become an ISO standard, provided no new appeals are lodged. RELATED ARTICLES ISO: OOXML Appeals 'Should Not Proceed' Is OOXML a Done Deal? EC Investigates OOXML Process For more stories on this topic: This weekend, the state IT organizations of Brazil, South Africa, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba and Paraguay published a declaration saying they were no longer confident that ISO would be a vendor-neutral organization. "Whereas in the past it has been... [ Read more on www.internetnews.com ]

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