A technical committee in India has rejected Microsoft's Office Open XML file format as a standard.

In the meeting of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) technical committee Thursday, 13 members voted against the standard, while five members, including some outsourcing companies, and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) voted for making Open XML a standard.

Nasscom is in favor of multiple standards, including Open XML and ODF (Open Document Format), the association said in a statement. It added that technology neutrality and competition will lead to falling prices of IT products.

The technical committee was constituted by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), India's national standards body, after moves by Microsoft and other organizations to make Open XML a standard of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

BIS is a founder member of ISO, and represents India at the ISO.

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On March 29, the ISO members will vote once again to see whether "OpenXML" from Microsoft can also become a standard (ie needing more than 75% of the votes). Last time it got about 74% and so will surely get it this time around - even though it is not a good thing. India hasn't reconsidered but a few other member countries may.

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Can't say it won't happen, but they'd be foolish to accept it as a standard.

For starters, it's broken... Read this thread.

Cheers

Everybody knows it's broken. Do you think microsoft cares? The more broken the better for them as nobody else but them will be able to use it.

Sad, but true... That's why I said the ISO would be foolish to accept it as a standard.

The argument from the pro-ooxml zealots is lame, at best - multiple standards will only cause confusion and conflict. It will do nothing productive for the industry, or the end user. We've proven that fact before, and that's why the ISO was created.

Cheers