The U.S. delegate organization to the powerful ISO standards body is now almost sure to vote against approving Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format as an open standard this year.

In a reversal, the American representative to the ISO standards body is now tentatively supporting the approval of Microsoft's Office Open XML document format as an open standard this year.

The apparent International Organization for Standardization vote to approve Microsoft's Office Open XML document format as an international standard is just the start of a likely lengthy adoption and implementation process, according to critics and supporters of the specifications.

The International Organization for Standardization has voted against a proposal to fast-track Microsoft's Office Open XML format as an international standard. Here's how the vote went: all 41 of the of the countries that had worked on the proposal participated in the vote. There were 17 "yes" votes, 15 "no" votes, and 9 abstentions.

Next month, national standards bodies will vote for the second time on whether to adopt the Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an international standard.

Standards Australia has cast a vote to abstain from the ISO/IEC JTC1 ballot to adopt the DIS 29500 Office Open XML format draft standard as an International Standard. The decision to cast an abstain vote from the current ballot follows months of consultation and a clear lack of consensus in Australia on this issue by stakeholders.

The fallout from the events leading up to the recent vote on whether or not to approve Microsoft's Office Open XML documents format as an ISO standard continues unabated, more than a month after the software maker conceded it had lost that vote.

An esoteric-but-key technical committee will recommend that the U.S. maintain its support for making Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format an ISO-certified open standard, despite controversy at a meeting last week discussing fixes to the proposed specification.

"France has voted against adoption of Microsoft Corp.'s document format Office Open XML as an international standard, while Australia has decided to abstain..."