• India Rejects Office Open XML Again

    India Rejects Office Open XML Again

    Techtree News Staff, Mar 24, 2008 1734 hrs IST

    After rejecting Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format as standard back in August last year, the Bureau of Indian Standards has rejected the format once again.

    mail share

The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) that is India's representative body at the International Standards Organization (ISO), has once again rejected Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) file format as standard.

In a meeting of the BIS technical committee on Thursday last week, 13 members voted against the OOXML standard, while only five members, including some outsourcing companies, and the National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM) voted for it.

This is the second time BIS has rejected the OOXML format as standard. Once before in August last year, the BIS technical committee voted against making the format a standard, although some participants said at the time that they might reconsider making the format a standard after Microsoft made necessary changes to it.

Coming to the rejection of the format for the second time, Microsoft said it is disappointed by the outcome, however added that support from major IT players like NASSCOM, Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro, and Infosys is definitely encouraging.

Incidentally, NASSCOM is in favor of multiple standards, including Open XML and ODF (Open Document Format), the association said in a statement. It also expressed hope that technology neutrality and competition would lead to falling prices of IT products.

Significantly, the Indian vote comes before the March 29 deadline for ISO members to reconsider their votes if they so wish to.

Follow Techtree on Twitter

Related Links
Microsoft Antipiracy Case: 11 Convicted
Microsoft Office 2007
Building a Mid-End HTPC
Tag keywords
Microsoft Office Open XML OOXML Bureau of Indian Standards



Discussion Board
(7) Comments
J Mohapatra
,Kolkata, on Mar 27, 2008 12:19 PM
Anything that is to be a global standard should be consulted by international standard institutions like IEEE and must not be from a Software Vendor with commercial interest. Some special technical team should have done a thorough analysis of pros & cons of going for one format or the other.
Report abuse
ashok pai
,bangalore, on Mar 24, 2008 09:59 PM
microsoft has bought out nasscom. the top companies of infosys, wipro and tcs have direct tie-ups with MS. they will support the MS format for sure. the opposition to this deal is because, MS will never make it truly open. if they were so bothered about standars, why dont they simply agree to odf ? also, why do new formats support bugs of word 97 or older word formats ? why does a new format need backward compatibility with existing formats that are ridden with bugs. a new fresh begining is better than the pain the world has endured due to ms word.
Report abuse
Anonymous
,Brissie, on Mar 25, 2008 07:18 PM
ODT format itself is recessively flawed.
Report abuse
Praveen
,Noida, on Mar 25, 2008 05:31 PM
We have to support the nasscom policy in this regard as their view about multiple standards will help in incresae in competition and hence better quality product as well as better compatibilty for our IT firms. I dont feel any direct harm to follow it as a standard.
Report abuse
Anonymous
,bangalore, on Mar 25, 2008 07:33 AM
Probably M$ didn't $ to BIS technical committee members. Next time M$ will surely win.
Report abuse
Aditya Sanyal
,Chennai, on Mar 24, 2008 11:22 PM
for once the govt of india is doing something right. probably because the old politicians dont know anything about it. infy/wipro are M$ partners and their votes shouldnt be considered.
Report abuse
vjm
,bombay, on Mar 24, 2008 08:08 PM
NASSCOM's take that multiple standards is a good thing sounds logical on the face of it but the fact is that Microsoft's supposedly "open" standard is, to a large extent, proprietary. Voting against it was a good thing and a we should give the BIS a round of applause for standing up to what must have been immense pressure from M$$$$$$.
Report abuse

Opinion Poll