Microsoft hijacked Swedish OOXML vote? Sweden is represented in the ISO through the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS). This means that our country has one of the 100 or so votes.

The member countries have had six months to consider if the Office Open XML (OOXML) format should become an ISO standard. In Sweden, SIS arranged a working group that have looked through the material. As you may know the OOXML format has been heavily criticized (by many e.g. Google (PDF)) for allowing embedding of closed Microsoft-specific objects in the document standard and thus making it difficult for non-Microsoft software to read OOXML documents.

Unfortunately, SIS is an organisation where anyone can become a member. Member organizations can send participants to a working group for a fee. The current rate is 17,000 SEK (~$2,500). The day before the vote that decided if SIS would say yes to OOXML in the ISO there were a couple of new members in the SIS/TK321/AG17 working group:

Company nameRelation to Microsoft
ExorMicrosoft Partner
Formpipe softwareMicrosoft Gold Partner
CyberneticsMicrosoft Gold Partner
IbizkitMicrosoft Partner
EmricMicrosoft Partner
Strand InterconnectMicrosoft Gold Partner
NordicstationMicrosoft Partner
SourcetechMicrosoft Partner
Cornerstone SwedenMicrosoft Gold Partner
Solid ParkMicrosoft Gold Partner
Fishbode systemsMicrosoft Gold Partner
KnowIT SverigeMicrosoft Gold Partner
Modul 1Microsoft Gold Partner
IDE NätverkskonsulterMicrosoft Gold Partner
ConnectaMicrosoft Gold Partner
Camako DataMicrosoft Gold Partner
SogetiMicrosoft Gold Partner
Tieto Enator Corp.Microsoft Gold Partner

And so, Sweden will be voting yes to make OOXML an ISO standard.

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