There are some important questions regarding OOXML’s upcoming ISO bid that Microsoft cannot answer or just simply won’t. From 25-29 February 2008 in Geneva, Switzerland, the ISO community will hold a Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) of the National Boards to discuss and vote finally on OOXML as an ISO standard. This article raises questions that Microsoft should answer to the satisfaction of the ISO community as part of the deliberation leading up to the BRM vote.

The New Zealand Open Source Society (NZOSS) has grave concerns about the draft Office Open XML (OOXML) standard currently being 'fast tracked' through the ISO.

Standards Malaysia has now issued a statement [PDF] regarding the BRM. The title says it all, "Malaysian delegation at the ISO meeting in Geneva (25 – 29 Feb ’08) finds the technical issues in the draft standard OOXML unresolved satisfactorily".

Where are we now?

From February 25 to 29 in Geneva, the next step in the seemingly never-ending show-down over whether Microsoft’s Office Open XML document format should be granted ISO standard status is taking place.

An esoteric-but-key technical committee will recommend that the U.S. maintain its support for making Microsoft Corp.'s Office Open XML document format an ISO-certified open standard, despite controversy at a meeting last week discussing fixes to the proposed specification.

Sign petition: Say NO to the Microsoft Office format as an ISO standard.Microsoft is currently trying to make the ISO National Bodies believe that its Office Open XML (OOXML) format is a good standard. This website discusses why this broken proprietary standard should never be accepted by ISO.

There will be a BRM (Ballot resolution meeting) in Geneva on 25-29 February 2008 to answer the comments by National Standard Boards on OOXML and to resolve issues. Microsoft has set up a situation where many of the shortcomings and thousands of comments which need to be resolved at the BRN will not be addressed. They have closed this process as much as possible and have delayed National Boards from having adequate time to review proposed changes.

This takes the cake. Alex Brown has just admitted on his Griffin Brown blog and further to ZDNET UK's Peter Judge that Microsoft Office 2007 has failed two OOXML conformance tests he ran. First ZDNET:
In a blog posting this week, Alex Brown, revealed that Microsoft Office 2007 documents do not meet the latest specifications of the ISO OOXML draft standard.