“The International Organization for Standardization concluded a
five-month round of fast-track voting Sept. 2 on a proposed new
standard on open documents, and when the ballots were counted,
Microsoft had lost its initial bid for adoption of its Office Open
XML format.“Just how badly Microsoft was beaten depends on whom you are
listening to, but the company probably will get a second shot at
making OOXML an international standard early next year. So maybe it
is not too late to bring the Microsoft format together with the
OpenDocument Format and create one big, happy, interoperable
standard…”