The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) on Friday approved the Open Document Format (ODF) as an official national South African standard. The adoption of ODF by South Africa opens the way for the businesses and government to adopt ODF more widely in their processes. ODF is already an international standard, approved by the International Standards Organisation, or ISO.

Microsoft's plans of having its OOXML document format accepted as a national standard were thwarted by the South African Bureau of Standards in a conclusive vote against the move in a meeting yesterday.

South Africa has filed an official appeal against the ISO's fast-track decision to approve Microsoft's OOXML format as an international standard.

Following recent reports of a South African bank eyeing out Linux, Novell South Africa today issued a statement in which it said it had reached an agreement with First National Bank of South Africa to standardise the bank's 12 000 desktops in its 680 retail branches on Novell's Linux product.

Andy Updegrove has the news that South Africa has filed an official appeal, protesting the approval of OOXML, and their action means that OOXML is now in limbo until the appeal ends:SABS, the National Body member of ISO/IEC JTC1 for South Africa, has filed a formal appeal with both ISO and IEC, challenging the Fast Track adoption of OOXML.

In the wake of the release of the South African government's Minimum Interoperability Standards (MIOS) for information systems document, Tectonic asked Microsoft SA's platform strategy manager, Paulo Ferreira how this would impact on the company and its drives to promote the Office Open XML (OOXML) format.

The other day we mentioned South Africa because of its decision to embrace OpenDocument format. Shortly afterwards we spotted Microsoft’s plan to pay a little visit to this country. Coincidence? Maybe.

As Microsoft's Office Open XML document format remains in ISO limbo, a trio of countries are pushing forward an adoption of the alternative Open Document Format (ODF) instead, according to an ODF advocacy group.

Two teenage sisters from Boston, along with their family and school, have joined forces with an American non-profit organization to provide laptop computers to underprivileged children in South Africa.