India still thumbs-down on Open XML

The Bureau of Indian Standards has decided to vote against recommending Office Open XML as an ISO standard.

According to local reports, India's national standards-making body will not change its position in regards to Open XML, the document formats Microsoft and other companies have sought to standardize at the ISO (International Organization for Standardization).

By next Saturday, March 29, national standards organizations need to submit their judgment on whether Open XML should be an ISO standard through its accelerated process.

The United States has already indicated that he will recommend Open XML to be a standard.

India's vote against Open XML standardization is consistent with its decision from last year. And the country has heavily promoted standards software--Indian states, including Delhi, Kerala, and others, have already adopted the standard OpenDocument (ODF), according to the Business Standard.

India and other countries that voted against Open XML last September attended a Ballot Resolution Meeting last month in Geneva to address technical issues that were raised. Now, countries have until March 29 to change their votes to "yes."

Microsoft representatives told the Economic Times of India that the company is disappointed with the decision and that it goes against the wishes of many companies in the IT industry.

"While we are disappointed with the decision of the BIS LITD 15 committee, we are encouraged by the support of IT industry players like Nasscom, TCS, Wipro, and Infosys, who voted in favor of Open XML becoming an ISO standard," Microsoft India said in a statement.

Lobbying on both sides of the debate is picking up, with only one week to go before votes are recast.

Microsoft's senior vice president of Office, Chris Capossela published an open letter on Sunday outlining the software giant's rationale for standardizing Open XML. He cited a number of customers, including the U.S. Library of Congress and The British Library, which have contributed to the specification.

IBM blogger Ed Brill responded to Capossela's letter reiterating IBM's opposition to Open XML because it is not truly open, too complex, and technically flawed.

[Commander_Spock]

"The United States...

... has already indicated that he will recommend Open XML to be a standard..." Let us put things this way - There are a lot more potential "Office Suite" (not necessarily users of the Microsoft Office Suite) outside the United States that there are "Office Suite" users inside the United States. Also, in India there are over one billion people compared to 300 million in the United States. As a developer which "Office Suite" will be the one that offers the best financial opportunities (to develop applications for) putting this in the context of the OS/2 and Windows saga. ;-) !

What Goes Around Comes Around. ;-) !

[Dalkorian]

India got it right

This isn't "open" by any definition, it's a ploy by M$ to force a
proprietary standard down the public's throat under the guise of it
being "open". Everyone can see that, it's just a question of whether
or not M$ paid you to lie to everyone about it.

[Commander_Spock]

The Right Time Come IBM Lotus Symphony vs Microsoft Office!

Who in their right mind would want to open their pocket books to throw even more of their dollars at the Microsoft Office Suite when the can get IBM's Lotus Symphony ( http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa ) which already supports the already approved International Organization for Standardization (ISO) OpenDocument Format Standards (ODF); and, which can be gotten for free. :-( :-( :-( !

[Commander_Spock]

Think The Microsoft Corporation is a company of "Lawyers": Think Again!

And these are the Generations of Commander_Spock:

http://us.st11.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/datatrace_1993_28642870

http://www.genealogymagazine.com/luckhoo.html

If OS/2 can be good for the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, "Genealogy" Data Bases... it can be good for the already "ISO" Standardized OpenOffice Productivity Suite too. ;-) !

Stay Forever Free (from "Lock-Ins" Folks) :-) M :-$ !

Live Long And Prosper!