Although official ISO confirmation is first due tomorrow, Microsoft's Open XML appears to have won approval as an ISO/IEC Standard. According to documents available on the Internet, 86 percent of all voting national body members support ISO/IEC standardization, well above the 75 percent requirement for formal acceptance under ISO and IEC rules.

“With 86 percent of voting national bodies supporting ratification, there is overwhelming support for Open XML. This outcome is a clear win for the customers, technology providers and governments that want to choose the format that best meets their needs and have a voice in the evolution of this widely adopted standard,” said Tom Robertson, general manager of Interoperability and Standards at Microsoft, in a staement.

“The input from technical experts, customers and governments around the world has greatly improved the Open XML specification and will make it even more useful to developers and customers. Once it is formally approved, we are committed to supporting this specification in our products, and we will continue to work with standards bodies, governments and the industry to promote greater interoperability and innovation,” Robertson added.

75 percent of the voting Participating national body members (known as P-members) supported standardization, also well above the 66.7 percent requirement for this group.

When confirmed tomorrow, Open XML will join HTML, PDF and ODF as an ISO- and IEC-recognized open document format standard.