Due to 'serious irregularities,' Norway's OOXML vote could be suspended pending an investigation, adding further intrigue to the ongoing standards debate

Microsoft has hailed the ISO's acceptance of the Microsoft Open Office XML despite controversy in standards communities about voting irregularities. The new vote reverses last year's rejection of OOXML. Norway's Standard Norge dismissed members and three staff members reversed a no vote. Other countries also reported OOXML voting problems.

The uproar over OOXML just won't quit. There has now been a formal protest filed, stating that due to irregularities, Norway's Yes vote should be changed to No and informing ISO that there has been a request for an investigation by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry:

It's all over the news today that OOXML will probably be approved as an ISO standard this week. Plenty of links to the coverage in this discussion on Slashdot. As is now common with OOXML, there are also reports of hair-raising irregularities in the voting processes of various countries.

There is now a report from Norway on how Microsoft rallied its partners to try to get a favorable vote on MSOOXML. Norway will tell us the vote results on September 2.

The ‘Norway story’ continues. Yesterday we pieced together somewhat of a summary which included a new list of irregularities. Now come the protests.

In 2009, Norway decided that ODF was to be used, rather than OOXML, but called for further study and input from the IT industry, and I gather Microsoft put its shoulder to the wheel, and guess what? Now there is a new report (in Norwegian) that compared the two and concludes that neither is suitable, and both should be kept "under observation".

Croatia and Norway have signed up to the European Patent Convention taking the total number of European Patent Organisation member states to 34.

Shortly after the implosion of Standard Norway, Microsoft announces a new initiative