13 members of the TC in Norway has left their Standards Body in protest. They say that the Standards Body has lost its credibility in the IT area. Remember that Standards Norway was voting Yes with the support of only 2 companies (Microsoft and Statoil), and against the will of the rest of the technical committee.

There is now a report from Norway on how Microsoft rallied its partners to try to get a favorable vote on MSOOXML. Norway will tell us the vote results on September 2.

Due to 'serious irregularities,' Norway's OOXML vote could be suspended pending an investigation, adding further intrigue to the ongoing standards debate

"OSLO, Norway (AP) — Norway's top consumer advocate said Monday he is taking Apple Inc. to the government's Market Council in a test case seeking to force the American company to open its iTunes music store to digital players other than its own iPod..."

Norway Standards has released its decision on OOXML. It's No with Comments. Essentially, they are concerned about too many technical issues and wish to see them fixed before it becomes a standard.

As the representative for Norway in the recent OOXML ratification process, Steve Pepper has become an outspoken critic of the IEC/ISO process. Pepper is also a passionate advocate of XML, open standards and Topic Maps.

The protests against OOXML in Norway were mentioned on a few occasions recently [1, 2, 3]. It appears as though they earned the media attention they had sought.

Shortly after the implosion of Standard Norway, Microsoft announces a new initiative

The ‘Norway story’ continues. Yesterday we pieced together somewhat of a summary which included a new list of irregularities. Now come the protests.