Microsoft's defeatin failing to win
enough international support for its draft Office Open XML (OOXML)
file format as an ISO standard may not be the end of the road for
the technology.
Analyst Ovum says Microsoft may well quickly re-submit the
standard to the ISO after making some modifications to the draft,
which it is allowed to do under ISO rules.
The
ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) announced
earlier this week that, following a five-month ballot among
countries, the draft Office Open XML (OOXML) file format had not
achieved the required number of votes for approval by ISO and the
International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).
OOXML required at least 66.66% of the votes to be positive and
no more than 25% of the votes to be negative. It achieved neither
of these criteria, with 53% positive votes and 26% negative votes.
A number of countries also abstained.
Laurent Lachal, an analyst at Ovum, said, "The ballot is a
setback but not the end of the line for OOXML as an ISO
standard.
"As part of its efforts to try and win over more national bodies
to its side, Microsoft is likely to make more concessions that will
lead to a better specification, good enough for it to eventually
scrape through as an ISO standard," said Lachal.
Microsoft is keen to get OOXML approved to help convince users,
particularly public bodies and governments, that its software does
not totally lock in customer data to proprietary platforms.
OOXML is the first major Microsoft response to open source
document formats such as the OpenDocument Format (ODF).