As reported on consortiuminfo.org, the official vote tally is in and ISO/IEC DIS 29500 (Ecma 376 Office Open XML file formats) did not gain approval. However, you could never tell it failed by reading a Microsoft press release entitled Strong Global Support for Open XML as It Enters Final Phase of ISO Standards Process. This article simply emphasizes the unprecedented level of participation and highlights the “qualified” positive voting results.

Tom Robertson, general manager for Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft Corp states, “This preliminary vote is a milestone for the widespread adoption of the Open XML formats around the world for the benefit of millions of customers. Given how encouraging today’s results were, we believe that the final tally in early 2008 will result in the ratification of Open XML as an ISO standard.”

I’m not sure what milestone means in this case. Basically, the possible ratification of ISO/IEC DIS 29500 has now moved out to 2008. Microsoft states that technical input will enhance the standard. So, I suppose the next phase for the OOXML community is to address the technical flaws sited in the comments of the voting members.

At the end of the day, the world may actually end up with two open document standards. To support a vibrant ecosystem around an open document format, the standard chosen by developers must yield document security (free from vendor lock-in and proprietary extensions) and ubiquitous acceptance across operating systems and applications (free from legacy encumbrances). If Microsoft wishes to create a document format that is better able to address the problems of the many editable legacy documents created in their older proprietary formats, they are welcome to help extend the existing ODF ISO standard in order to add the capabilities they require.

The de facto acceptance of a standard is of far more importance than the ratification of a standard. Application developers can vote (and have voted) by developing office suites, document management systems, and tools around the existing ODF ISO standard.