Microsoft wins key standards battle

Tom Robertson,  general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft, commented: "With 86 percent 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".

Marino Marcich,  managing director of the ODF Alliance,  the competitor of OOXML, reacted: "The vote shined a spotlight on OOXML that will not dim. Only in response to growing public pressure has Microsoft promised to make changes to OOXML, and, to be sure, similar promises have been made on numerous occasions. To avoid any questions concerning the legitimacy of the vote, which included many documented irregularities, Microsoft needs to ensure that these promises made to national standards bodies are actually delivered". 

Istvan Sebestyen,  secretary general of ECMA International, the private US standardisation body, echoed Microsoft's satisfaction. "ISO approval of this global standard represents an important milestone in our goal to support access to billions of existing binary documents, as well as to enable interoperability across office productivity applications and with line-of-business systems".

Benjamin Henrion,  initiator of the 'NO OOXML' campaign, wryly commented: "Committee stuffing is a standard practice for Microsoft. Microsoft raped ISO with their office file formats, leaving the organisation in limbo. The whole campaign against the format has raised an army of people, who are furious about the dirty tactics used by Microsoft to get the broken standard through ISO".

Graham Taylor, the chief executive of OpenForum Europe, said: "The result could well prove a hollow victory for Microsoft. It comes at a considerable cost to the reputations of Microsoft, ECMA and the International Standards Organisation (ISO). Microsoft will experience ever increasing and costly outspoken grass roots opposition across the world".

Jan van den Beld of the industry alliance Comptia commented: "The vote represents a tremendous victory for choice. With ISO approval of OOXML, governments, businesses, consumers and the ICT industry now have a powerful, competitive alternative international standard that will allow products based on it to better interoperate with other document products, while also benefiting from new innovation stemming from the many independent software developers who have or will choose OOXML."

Philippe Aigrain,  one of the European gurus  in the field, commented in his blog: "The adoption of OOXML as a standard will not stop the growing adoption of OpenDocument office suites. It will just slow it down. Just enough to pump a few tens of billions of euros from the pockets of the planet citizens into the profits of one company."