Although an official ISO statement is expected to come tomorrow, a leaked decision has shown that Microsoft has won a battle to have a key document format adopted as a global standard, improving its chances of winning government contracts and dealing a blow to supporters of a rival format. The OpenDoc Society, which had argued Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format was unripe for ratification by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), published the results showing Microsoft's win on its Web site.
Microsoft welcomed the decision, saying it created a "level playing field" for OOXML to compete with other standards. Tom Robertson, Microsoft's head of interoperability and standards, stated: "Open XML joins the ranks of PDF, HTML and ODF among the ranks of document formats. I think it makes it easier for governments to offer users choice." Others, however, were less pleased. James Love, director of Knowledge Economy International, which campaigns for fairer access to knowledge, told Reuters: "We are disappointed. Microsoft's control over document formats has destroyed competition on the desktop, and the fight over OOXML is really a fight over the future of competition and innovation."
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