India will vote a 'no' against Microsoft's Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in Geneva on September 2
The Open Document Format (ODF) alliance, enjoying widespread support from academia and corporates like Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Google, were in a jubilant mood having succeeded in stalling OOXML from being accepted as a standard in India. According to Nita Verma, Head, National Informatics Centre and Chairperson, BIS technical committee, “We unanimously agree on the disapproval of OOXML with comments. The same will be submitted to ISO”. Microsoft said it respect's the government's decision. “There were only three options `Yes', `No' and `Abstain' to be taken and we respect the government's decision. India's 'No' vote will become a 'Yes' if Microsoft is able to resolve all technical issues with OOXML before the ballot resolution committee of ISO” said, Rakesh Baxi, Head, Legal affairs, Microsoft