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Microsoft Looks for the Big Guns in OOXML In-Fighting

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce

Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Commerce to push the American National Standards Institute to ignore the votes of its advisory committees and vote "yes" on ISO standardizing Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) format, the one in competition with the OpenDocument Format (ODF) pushed by IBM and Sun.

Gates reportedly picked up the phone when the last INCITS ballot failed by one vote to support Microsoft.

The only trouble with getting the US government involved in voting "aye" is that because of the way OOXML handles XML Scheme the government will have to break its own rules to use it.

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Most Recent Comments
Neil Licht 12/01/07 12:53:34 PM EST

who are you? You posted to my blog w/o any info, comments. RSVP

shlaenura blog 11/30/07 07:05:18 AM EST

Trackback Added: shlaenura 2 post; all about shlaenura and top news

Garry Hurley Jr. 10/03/07 08:36:32 AM EDT

Why is this not national news? I mean, here we have a big monopolistic company trying to force their will on COUNTRIES. The major news outlets should be carrying this story instead of "Britney loses custody of children" or "Lindsay Lohan in rehab again" or "Paris Hilton Goes to Jail" and who can forget "O.J. in Trouble With the Law Again." Oh, I forgot. Microsoft has spent millions of dollars on advertising in the mainstream media, thereby buying their silence on these issues.

As a point of fact, however, it should be noted that the Defense Department has had a number of problems with Microsoft over the security of their products in the past. Noted security holes that went unattended in several versions of Windows and Office, which Microsoft knew about, acknowledged the existence of to developers, and did nothing to patch until one of the developers leaked it to the appropriate media outlets (in this case, hacker forums). If the DoD supports Microsoft's file system format, it just goes to prove that our government is now "Of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation. People? Oh, you mean the taxpayers. Screw them."

Anton 08/23/07 01:03:13 PM EDT

"Bill Gates has reportedly been making phone calls to the Secretary of Defense". Reported by who?

Andre 08/23/07 06:41:09 AM EDT

1. Yes vote == unmodified ECMA standard becomes ISO standard
2. YES with Comments = see above
3. Disapproval == ECMA standard will get improved with the option to become an ISO standard, all the bugs get fixed
4. No == see 3 or ISO process fails but ECMA specification remains

No rational player including the Secretary of Defense could support a YES vote. Because it provides absolutely no advantage to them or any other party except Microsoft. It would be a gift.

Now, fast-track is designed for a YES vote but ECMA fast-tracked a premature specification. It is unacceptable as it is.