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Microsoft loses open format vote

Software experts on Tuesday 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, (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

The fight over the standard 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 firm's software. The only standardized format now available to government buyers is OpenDocument Format, developed by a consortium led by IBM, which the ISO approved in May last year.

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 could oppose the bid. Microsoft also failed to win the vote of 66 percent of 41 countries on another panel of ISO and IEC members.

More than 90 percent of all digital text documents in the world are in Microsoft formats, according to the consulting firm Gartner. Many local and national governments in Europe and some in the US are requiring open formats to reduce their reliance on Microsoft.

Tom Robertson, Microsoft's general manager for interoperability and standards, predicted the firm's format would be eventually adopted.
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