Standards authority happy with Microsoft format vote

Maurice Buckley: "I can't think of any other standard in recent times that has been so keenly followed."
Photograph: The Irish Times

DESPITE THE threat of a European Commission investigation, the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) says it is satisfied that the process which led it to vote for the ratification of Microsoft's Office document format as an industry standard was "open and transparent".

Following a recent vote in Geneva, Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) document format was accepted by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO). Sixty-one countries, including Ireland, Britain, the US and Germany voted in favour of its adoption following 14 months of intense lobbying which saw the format "fast-tracked" through the process.

Ranked against Microsoft and its allies were other heavyweights including IBM, Oracle and Sun Microsystems, which believed the existing Open Document Format standard should be adopted by the world's largest software company.

The European Commission has reportedly said it will examine the process of how individual nations came to vote in favour of it.

Maurice Buckley, chief executive of the NSAI said the process was an "order of magnitude more intense and keenly followed" that any other standard it has examined.

"I can't think of any other standard in recent times that has been so keenly followed," said Mr Buckley. "It tested the standards development process both nationally and internationally." The documentation supporting Microsoft's application ran to more than 6,000 pages.

Mr Buckley acknowledged that this presented a challenge for the ad-hoc committee of experts and industry representatives chaired by Dr David Abrahamson, head of the school of computer science at Trinity College, Dublin, that met on a weekly basis for almost six months to formulate Ireland's response.

Last September, at an initial stage in the process, the NSAI voted "no with comments" to the Microsoft proposal. It submitted 12 comments, primarily related to legacy issues about how older document formats would be supported, which, if addressed, would enable NSAI to vote yes.

At last month's meeting, the 12 Irish comments got a hearing, which Mr Buckley said was testament to Ireland's 25-year history of contributing to international standards setting and our strong reputation in the technology sector.

While the ISO meeting approved the new format, the final version of the standard still has to be published by Microsoft. At that stage national standards bodies can request further changes or clarification. In the meantime, there can still be challenges to the process in individual countries - Norway and Germany seem to be heading down this route.,

"There may well be appeals in Ireland, but I am not aware of any," said Mr Buckley.

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times