It is according to IT BLOGWATCH which predicts that the Microsoft sponsored OOXML format has passed the ISO vote. Of course, a final vote will not be tallied until Monday … so hold on.
According to Consortium.org, Microsoft got a boost from Norway, Ireland, Czech Republic, Denmark and South Korea, which changed their respective ‘No’ votes to ‘Yes’ votes for Office Open XML, while Finland, which abstained from the last vote, gave OOXML the thumbs up.
Microsoft began its battle to get ISO approval in early December of 2006. On December 7 of that year, ECMA International approved Office Open XML Formats as an ECMA standard and voted to submit the new standard to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for consideration as an ISO standard.
Microsoft needs to bag two thirds of the votes to see OOXML recognized as a standard alongside competing file format Open Document Format (ODF) which was endorsed by the ISO last year.
Meanwhile, the British Standards Institute (BSI) is another high profile national standards body that has changed its position and agreed to approve OOXML, or DIS 29500 after voting against it in September last year.
