The Final OOXML Update: Part I

“From the beginning of the Fast Track procedure Microsoft
encouraged NBs to approve OOXML with the promise that their
approval of the specification would guarantee that it would be
handed over to the “global community” for maintenance. Vote against
the standard — because it was obviously flawed — and
you would lose this unique opportunity to transfer control from
proprietary interests at Microsoft to the benevolent and
international meritocracy of ISO. This was one of the main “selling
points” for OOXML and what we Microsoft repeatedly sold.

“For example, here was Jerry Fishenden, Microsoft’s National
Technology Office in the UK:

“There’s an easy question to consider here: would you prefer the
Microsoft file formats to continue to be proprietary and under
Microsoft’s exclusive control? Or would you prefer them to be under
the control and maintenance of an independent, open standards
organisation? I think for most users, customers and partners that’s
a pretty easy question to answer: they’d prefer control and
maintenance to be independent of Microsoft. And the good news is
that the Open XML file formats are already precisely that:
currently under the control of Ecma International (as Ecma-376)
and, if the current voting process is positive, eventually under
the control of ISO/IEC”

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