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OOXML standard on a knife-edge
UK U-turn on the cards?

By Peter Judge

Published: Friday 28 March 2008

The British Standards Institution (BSI) could change sides, days before voting closes, and register a vote in favour of Microsoft's Office Open XML becoming an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard - having previously voted against.

If the BSI registers a vote in favour, Office Open XML (OOXML) would pass one of two criteria to becoming a standard, but fail the other.

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A technical group formed to make a recommendation to the BSI's policy panel has voted five-to-one in favour of OOXML being accepted as an international standard, a source close to the process has told silicon.com sister site ZDNet.co.uk. There was intense lobbying by interested parties before a meeting on Tuesday, in which IBM was apparently the one remaining dissident. IBM uses the competing OpenDocument Format (ODF), which is already an international standard.

The committee - whose members are not made public - voted against OOXML in September, criticising it, among other things, for failing to take account of existing international standards, including ODF.

The BSI policy panel is not obliged to follow the technical group's recommendation and can simply note it, leaving its vote unchanged. If it does approve OOXML and other votes remain the same, the specification would be approved by 59 per cent of the 32 eligible organisations, or "P-members". However, OOXML would still fall short of the two-thirds majority that is required and would not, therefore, become a standard.

It appears that OOXML needs another four of the P-Members, including the UK, to change sides before it becomes a standard.