The long and contentious battle to standardize Office Open XML won’t end this weekend when ISO member countries cast votes, but is likely headed for a special meeting where specific questions regarding the 6,000-page specification will need to be resolved.

The vote, slated for Sept. 2, is one of the last phases of nearly five months of work by the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) on a proposal to standardize Ecma-376 Office Open XML (ooXML). The specification is derived from Microsoft’s Office Open XML, which is the default file format in Office 2007.

Ecma deemed Office Open XML a standard in December, and the ISO has been working on a fast-track proposal to consider doing the same. The issue has polarized the industry with detractors questioning Microsoft’s true intentions.

The ISO has already approved the OpenDocument Format (ODF) as a standard, giving it credibility among organizations that prefer standards-based technology, and Microsoft is gunning to land the same designation for the specification it presented to Ecma.

Critics say with all the politicking going on from both sides that handicapping the Sept. 2 outcome is near impossible.

On Thursday, Microsoft admitted that an employee at its Swedish subsidiary offered monetary compensation to partners for voting in favor of Sweden supporting ooXML during the Sept. 2 vote.

But rather than resolving the issue once and for all, the vote will raise technical and other questions about the specification that the ISO, Microsoft and Ecma may have to answer at a special week-long meeting slated for early 2008.

The Sept. 2 vote will be among the 140 ISO member countries, and it is from that process that questions will arise regarding technical and other aspects of ooXML, also known as DIS 29500 at the ISO.

Those questions will come from member countries that vote “no with comments.” The subcommittees that work under the Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC1), which is responsible for information technology standardization at ISO, are not required to consider comments from countries that vote “yes with comments.”

Microsoft has been encouraging skeptical countries to cast such votes and promising that their questions will be answered even though the formal process does not require those answers.

Whitepapers

• Selecting Effective Virtual Directories
• Best Practices for HP Servers and HP Enterprise Virtual Array in a Microsoft Exchange
• Compliance, Protection, Recovery: A Layered Approach to Laptop Security
• Endpoint Security: Data Protection for IT, Freedom for Laptop Users
• IT Departments on Data Security: A Research Concepts Survey
• Laptop Security Tool Helps Allina Hospitals Track 97% of IT Assets

View more SOFTWARE whitepapers

Webcasts

• Managing the End User Experience-A Real World Example of Success
• Lowering the Cost of Email Archives
• Google Webcast: Why archive email? Top challenges and best practices
• High Availability for SQL Server 2005 Using Array-Based Replication and Host-Based Mirroring Technologies
• Technical Overview of Exchange Server 2007 with HP Servers and Storage
• Bringing Order and Security to your Mobile Workforce: Corporate Mobility Policy and Device Management On-Demand

View more SOFTWARE webcasts

Special Reports

• Application Performance Management Executive Guide
• Executive Guide: Building a Service Oriented Architecture
• IT Buyers Guide To: Collaboration

View more SOFTWARE special reports