http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/technology/05soft.html
A panel of software experts yesterday unexpectedly rebuffed Microsoft’s
bid to have its open document format, Office Open XML, recognized as an
international standard. The decision complicates the company’s effort
to extend its dominance to the emerging field of open documents.
After
five months of electronic balloting, Microsoft failed to meet the two
voting criteria to win a designation as an approved standard from the
Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization, or the
I.S.O., and the International Electrotechnical Commission, or I.E.C.
The
fight over the standard, while technically arcane, is commercially
important because more governments are demanding interchangeable open
document formats for their vast amounts of records, instead of
proprietary formats tied to one company’s software. The only
standardized format now available to government buyers is OpenDocument
Format, developed by a consortium led by I.B.M., which the I.S.O. approved in May 2006.
The
timing of the decision may be inopportune for Microsoft, coming two
weeks before the European Court of First Instance is to rule on its
appeal of the European Commission’s 2004 antitrust decision against the company.
Of
the 87 countries that participated, 26 percent opposed Microsoft’s bid.
Under the rules for approval, no more than 25 percent of the countries
could oppose the bid. Microsoft also failed to win the vote of 66
percent of 41 countries on another panel of I.S.O. and I.E.C. members.
The
tug of war up to the vote was reminiscent of the company’s squabbles
with rivals. The critics of the company say that Microsoft’s dominance
of personal computer software gives it an unfair advantage, while the
company maintains that its innovations and technical expertise make for
superior products.
More than 90 percent of all digital text
documents in the world are in Microsoft formats, according to the
consulting firm Gartner. Many national and local governments in Europe
and some in the United States are requiring open formats to reduce
their reliance on Microsoft. In an open format, the computer code is
public, which allows developers to create new products that use it
without paying royalties.
Tom Robertson, Microsoft’s general
manager for interoperability and standards, predicted that Microsoft’s
format would be eventually adopted.
“Open XML is already widely available and is being used by Apple and Novell,” he said. “It is in the Palm operating system, and in the Java and Linux operating environments.”
Some critics of Microsoft blamed the company’s own aggressive lobbying for its defeat.
A
member of an advisory panel that voted on the standards issue in
Malaysia, who declined to be identified, said Microsoft’s lobbying in
the country had reached into high levels of government.
The
Industry Standards Committee on Information Technology of Malaysia
decided to vote against Microsoft’s format, but the Malaysian
government abstained in the end.
Mr. Robertson said Microsoft had
sought to persuade voters of the merits of Office Open XML, just as
I.B.M. had lobbied against it. “Many countries have taken part in this
vote, including countries that supported us,” he said.
