The Hindu Business Line : India not for MS-backed Open XML as standard

New Delhi, Aug 23 India decided to vote against Microsoft-backed Open XML as a standard for electronic document creation and storage, a move that is being seen as a setback-of-sorts for the software giant.

The decision was taken by a technical committee under Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) comprising representatives of IT Ministry, Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, IIT Delhi, and companies including Wipro, Infosys and TCS. Industry associations, Nasscom and MAIT, were also a part of the committee. BIS is the nodal agency representing India at International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Unresolved issues

“During the meeting, about 181 issues were identified in the first phase and 20 more in the second phase. The entire list was given to Microsoft to resolve. While the company responded to it, the committee felt that the issues were not resolved adequately. India has therefore decided that Open XML cannot go as a standard, while giving a pruned list of 84 technical issues which need to be resolved before it is recognised as a standard,” a source present at the meeting said. The decision would now be forwarded to ISO and considered in the ISO voting process involving 123 nations.

In response to the events today, Microsoft said, “We respect the decision taken by the BIS appointed committee. At the same time, it is important to note that all the BIS members unanimously support the need for multiple standards. Going forward, we will work with the BIS and the committee on the comments noted during the ballot resolution process.”

The debate between the standards for the electronic documents — OXML and Open Document Format (ODF) became heated over the last few weeks, splitting the IT industry over the issue. The ODF standard is being supported by Sun, IBM and Red Hat amongst others. Simply put, standards are technical specifications that permit developers of software, hardware, and services to make and distribute products that would work with one another within a given context.

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