ISO figures indicate that the company failed to gather either the two-thirds of Participating member votes or 75% of total member votes it required for OOXML to join the OpenDocument Format as an ISO-approved document format standard.

The company tried to put a positive spin on the result, citing strong global support and noting that 51 ISO members, representing 74 percent of all qualified votes, stated their support for ratification of Open XML. The company added that it was confident that OOXML would be approved following the ballot resolution meeting in March 2008.

Despite the positive spin, the result is not what Microsoft was looking for when the Ecma International standards group submitted OOXML for approval by the International Organization for Standardization.

Microsoft added that 51 members voting in favor of OOXML is more than the 32 who voted in favor of ODF at a similar stage in its approval. However, no votes were cast against ODF and it was approved without the need for a ballot resolution meeting to resolve any comments preventing its approval.

At press time ISO had not detailed how each country voted, but unofficial figures were available that tallied with the published results. According to those available, all 41 Participating members voted with 17 voting ‘Yes’, 15 No’ and nine abstentions.

ISO rules state that a potential standard needs two-thirds of the Participating votes after the removal of abstentions. With just over 53%, OOXML hit that hurdle pretty hard.

A standard can also be approved if less than 25% of all the Participating and Ordinary member votes (after the removal of abstentions) disapprove, however. In that regard, OOXML missed out by the narrowest of margins, with just over 26% voting against its approval.

As ISO itself put it: Neither of these criteria were achieved, with 53% of votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 being positive and 26% of national votes cast being negative.

Given the close nature of that last result, Microsoft needs only to swing a single Participating or Ordinary member to its way of thinking by the end of the ballot resolution meeting in order to have OOXML approved. Its optimism is therefore perhaps understandable.

We are extremely delighted to see that 51 ISO members, representing 74 percent of the qualified votes, have already voiced their support for ISO ratification of Open XML, and that many others have indicated they will support ratification once their comments are resolved in the next phase of the ISO process, said Tom Robertson, general manager for interoperability and standards at Microsoft.

Microsoft and ECMA now have until mid-January to respond to comments associated with both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ votes in order to turn the tide in its favor, while the ballot resolution meeting will convene in Geneva, Switzerland at the end of February to review the responses to comments and try to reach a consensus. If necessary there will be a re-vote.

For now though, the publication of the voting results brings to a close a hard-fought and often bitter battle to win the approval of national voting bodies that has been tarnished by allegations of corruption, bribery vote stuffing.

There were reports, for example, of representative from IBM and Sun being denied entry to a meeting in Portugal as the room was too small, despite a larger room being available. Meanwhile, in Spain, Microsoft was accused by the government of Andalusia of misrepresenting its views on OOXML’s potential adoption.

There were also accusations of misleading information being given to national bodies regarding the vote deadline and the way in which comments will be dealt with. Microsoft opponents in many countries accused the company of convincing its partners to sign up to national voting bodies in order to swing the vote.

Meanwhile Microsoft has accused IBM in February of trying to prevent adoption of OOXML, hyping opposition comments, and attempting to persuade partners to vote against the format.

Ballot stuffing by Microsoft partners has been reported in many countries; Norway being one example. Meanwhile Hungary is reportedly reconsidering its yes vote after the voting rules were changed at the last minute.

Matters came to a head in Sweden where an earlier vote in favor of approval was declared invalid after one of the participating companies voted twice, and in Hungary where the ‘Yes’ vote was reconsidered after it emerged that the voting rules were changed at the last minute.

Sweden’s approval was already shrouded in controversy after a memo surfaced from a Microsoft employee that encouraged partners to sign up and support OOXML in return for marketing support.

Microsoft’s director of corporate standards, Jason Matusow, recently admitted that the memo had been sent, but maintained that it was against company policy and that Microsoft Sweden had immediately sought to rectify the situation by withdrawing the offer and notifying Sweden’s standards body.

Our View

Given the controversy that has been involved in the approval voting process it is perhaps in everyone’s interests that OOXML failed to gain approval as an ISO standard. Had it done so, the approval would have been tainted.

Microsoft and ECMA now have the opportunity to deal with the many comments (some estimate as many as 10,000) that will need to be resolved if it is to be approved. The criticisms of OOXML are too lengthy to list here but include the fact that it is seen as too closely tied to Microsoft Office, overlaps with ODF, is inconsistent, contradicts existing standards, and raises legal uncertainty with regards to patents.

If Microsoft and ECMA can resolve these comments and OOXML can win approval via the ballot resolution meeting then OOXML will be more readily welcomed than if it had been approved following a fast track vote.