Deadline looms in Microsoft OOXML standards battle

Ian Grayson
Tuesday, 11 March 2008 10:07

Business IT - Technology

Microsoft’s opponents point to the rival ISO/IEC 26300 OpenDocument standard as a better option. Originally developed by Sun Microsystems this standard formed part of the OpenOffice.org office suite. Instances of its use include OpenOffice, Google Docs and IBM’s Lotus Symphony.

Some opponents have mounted a campaign called NO-OOXML to highlight their concerns over the approvals process.

Head of the Standards Australia delegation involved in the discussions, Panjan Navaratnam, says  despite the fact that no decision was reached, significant progress was made at the Geneva meeting.

Concerns addressed included ensuring the use of established date standardisations in all applications and the introduction of security measures against file type spoofing.

If OOXML is approved as an ISO standard following the March 29 voting deadline, it is widely expected to overtake the OpenDocument format and become the preferred format for documents created by large government and private organisations around the world.