Submission + - OOXML gets approval (theopensourcerer.com)
dominux writes: "The Open Sourcerer has the scoop, results of the ballot on dis29500, otherwise known as Microsoft Office Open XML are in. It isn't good news, but it is as expected. Microsoft managed to flip enough countries to make it stick. 75% of the P members who didn't abstain voted for Microsoft (That is 58% of all the P members). 14% of all the P and O members voted to disapprove it, this includes all the new O members that joined just in time to cast their vote. Norway has asked that their vote be suspended due to voting irregularities, but it would take more than that to make a difference to the result. So why did it happen? Alex Brown thinks it is because the No campaign was not as professional and organised as the campaign against a local planning decision. So what happens next? Rick Jelliffe had this to say:
"If DIS 29500 mark II has been accepted, then the narrowness of the victory needs to be something that Ecma and Microsoft take very seriously: standards maintenance needs to be a budgeted, normal cost of doing business. They should be aware that they are being thrown a lifeline, to some extent. If this becomes a one-off publicity stunt, as is the dire warning of MS' competitors (and therefore, their own publicity stunts!), and timely, real maintenance is not performed, I would expect OOXML would be de-standardized at ISO.
