The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) that is India’s representative body at the International Standards Organization (ISO), has once again rejected Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format as standard.
In a meeting of the BIS technical committee on Thursday last week, 13 members voted against the OOXML standard, while only five members, including some outsourcing companies, and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) voted for it.
This is the second time BIS has rejected the OOXML format as standard. Once before in August last year, the BIS technical committee voted against making the format a standard, although some participants said at the time that they might reconsider making the format a standard after Microsoft made necessary changes to it.
Coming to the rejection of the format for the second time, Microsoft said it is disappointed by the outcome, however added that support from major IT players like NASSCOM, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Infosys is definitely encouraging.
Incidentally, NASSCOM is in favor of multiple standards, including Open XML and ODF (Open Document Format), the association said in a statement. It also expressed hope that technology neutrality and competition would lead to falling prices of IT products.
Significantly, the Indian vote comes before the March 29 deadline for ISO members to reconsider their votes if they so wish to.
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