Unless thus-far unannounced votes that were formerly "approve" or "abstain" switch to "disapprove," it appears that OOXML will be approved. See details in the cumulative "updates" section below.

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote "yes" on ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.

THERE'S MORE news about countries' ISO votes on Microsoft's proposed OOXML document formats ahead of today's deadline for votes to be submitted

China has unanimously voted "no, with comments" on OOXML. As I had noted in an earlier blog entry, China had been signalling some displeasure with Microsoft and OOXML in recent weeks, via Xinhua, the official government news agency, so this is not totally a surprise.

Standards are supposed to be about a process of creating points of reference that people can rely upon, arrived at through a process of careful honing and consensus. Against this background, the manner in which Microsoft's OOXML has been put through the ISO has been astonishing.

As the battle over XML document standards heats up, Microsoft is gearing up its campaign to drive the adoption of its Office Open XML (OOXML) format in the lead up to a crucial ISO ballot resolution meeting scheduled for the end of this month. And Asia could play a significant role in determining the outcome.

Like it or not, Microsoft’s OOXML – now known as IS 29500 — has received the proper number of votes to become an ISO standard.

Despite a heated campaign to defeat International Organization for Standardization (ISO) status for Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML), over the weekend, even some staunch critics acknowledged that the company has likely garnered enough votes to win. However, that doesn't mean that they've given up the fight.

Where are we now?