Mumbai: After nearly 14 months of discussion, debate and controversies surrounding them, the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has finally declared that Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format has received the necessary number of votes for approval as an ISO/IEC international standard.
ISO approval means government business for Microsoft since governments worldwide, including India, prefer standards that are ratified from bodies such as the ISO. Governments are wary of holding digital data in proprietary formats, which could make them hostage (vendor lock-ins) to a software vendor.
“With 86 per cent of voting national bodies supporting ratification, there is overwhelming support for Open XML. This outcome is a clear win for the customers, technology providers and governments that want to choose the format that best meets their needs and have a voice in the evolution of this widely adopted standard,” said Tom Robertson, general manager of Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft, in a press statement.
Venkatesh Hariharan, co-founder, Open Source Foundation of India, said: “Standards in a crucial area like document formats impact the lives of all computer users daily.
Therefore, the manner in which OOXML has been pushed through ISO to support the monopolistic aims of a single corporation is a matter of serious concern. The European Union is investigating the numerous irregularities on the voting around OOXML and we will support their investigations.”
Non-governmental and legacy Microsoft Office users, on the other hand, are most likely not to bother about which file formats their office applications use, given that Microsoft Office still has an over 90 per cent market share in many countries. In developing nations also the software major aggressively competes by subsidising its offerings for governments and students.
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Source: Business Standard
