NZ, Sweden, Hungary Reflect OOXML Turmoil

A number of readers are sending news of the progress of Microsoft's attempt to get OOXML standardized by ISO. First off, New Zealand has voted "no" on the question. In Sweden, after the uproar following the "yes" vote there, a Microsoft representative has admitted buying Swedish OOXML votes (link in Swedish — follow the Read More... link below for some translated quotes). Computerworld has also picked up the Sweden story. Finally, from Hungary, reader ens0niq writes that the Minister of Economy and Transport has sent a letter to the General Director of the Hungarian Standards Institution requiring that the June 25 "yes" vote be re-done because of irregularities. Our correspondent notes, however, that many Microsoft partners have joined the voting committee in the meanwhile, so the result could be a replay of Sweden's experience.
Here are some quotes from the Swedish article translated by our anonymous correspondent.

-We have been informing our business partners about the process at SIS. What is going on, what the time plan is and that Microsoft thinks it is good if OOXML becomes a standard.

-In a letter from Microsoft, our business partners were informed that they were "expected" to participate in the SIS meeting and vote yes. As a compensation they would get "market benefits" and extra support in terms of Microsoft resources.

-This was a mistake and the letter was sent by a single employee on his own initiative without sanctions from Microsoft. He also quickly realised his mistake and tried to recall the letter.

-I can understand the critique about coup-like voting. But I claim the voters knew the issue well and had their own interest in OOXML becoming an ISO standard.

(Interviewer) -Has this harmed Microsoft?

-Time will tell. But almost all customers we have been talking to thinks it would be good if OOXML became an ISO standard.

Comments

Re:Sweden was a Phyrric victory

[Anonymous Coward]

pyrrhic

Not all countries are like America

[Nymz]

While Americans consider graft to be wrong, many American companies find the only way to access foreign markets is to pay off the corrupt gatekeepers. This doesn't neccessarily mean the people of those countries are inferior for failing to erradicate corruption, it just means their culture holds 'different' values.

The BBC has a nice page of links to key reports regarding how various countries and politicians around the world held 'different' cultural values in the Oil-For-Food scandal.

Re:Aren't they missing something?

[aadvancedGIR]

Not always, you could have a standard fully documenting what to do and still have a lot of room for proprietary IP and patents covering your particular implementation.

Re:Not really

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft are registered in the US, how would Japan or the EU (for example) compel Microsoft to split into separate entities?

Don't tell me, tell: Neelie.Kroes {AT} ec.europa.eu

Full Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

here's a translation of the full article, to the best of my anonymous coward capacities. English is not my native language (but Swedish is).

------------

Microsoft admits voting coup at SIS

Microsoft admits that the company is behind the voting coup at SIS where the document format OOXML became proposed as a new standard.
- Mistakes have been committed on our part, says Klas Hammar, Microsoft.

The majority of the 23 companies that showed up at the institute of standards SIS at the last minute to vote yes on making Microsoft's document format OOXML an ISO standard did so at the request of Microsoft.

- We have continuously informed our partners about the SIS process. What is happening, what the timeline looks like and that Microsoft thinks it is good if OOXML becomes a standard, says Klas Hammar, business unit director at Microsoft.

- In a letter from Microsoft partners have been told that they were "expected" to participate in the ISI meeting and vote yes. As compensation they would receive "market assistance" and "additional support in the form of Microsoft resources".

Is this ethically defensible?

- This was a mistake and the letter was sent out by a single employee completely on his own initiative without any sanction whatsoever from Microsoft. He also quickly realized his mistake and tried to recall the letter, says Klas Hammar.

- If the person promises "market assistance" and other things he must supposedly have authority for such a promise. Was he a director of some kind and therefore in the position to take such a decision by himself?

- He was not a director and Microsoft has not sanctioned any such promises, says Klas Hammar.

- Have you made any more mistakes in this issue?

- Time will have to tell, says Klas Hammar.

- Do you understand the critique about "voting coup"?

- I can understand the critique about voting ways in a coup-like way. But I maintain that those who voted were well informed in the question and have their own interests in making OOXML an ISO standard, says Klas Hammar.

- Is it really ethic to act as you have and gather "voting cattle" to SIS?

- It has been a process where both those who have been for and against OOXML have engaged themselves very hard and mobilized their respective partners. And according to SIS there has been tactics from all sides, says Klas Hammar.

Microsoft should have an interest in standardization work being conducted in a good and credible way. Do you consider the current SIS rules for participation in a work group to be unfortunate?

- I am not knowledgeable enough in standardization to be able to comment on how a standardization work should be done, says Klas Hammar.

- Has this hurt Microsoft?

- Time will have to tell. But almost all customers we have spoken to think it is good if OOXML becomes an ISO standard, says Klas Hammar.

Microsoft statement on the Swedish vote 'buying'

[I'm Don Giovanni]

It's not a surprise that slashdot only references the anti-Microsoft articles on this issue, but for the readers sake, I post Microsoft's side of the story regarding Sweden.
This was posted by Microsoft's Jason Matusow yesterday:
Matusow's Blog: Open XML - The Vote in Sweden

The latest chapter in the Open XML standardization story is focused on Sweden. There are accusations flying, emails floating around, and no shortage of theories about what has been happening there. As you can image I have been following up with a number of people and here are the issues and what I have found out so far.

Microsoft encouraged partners to participate in Sweden:

An employee in Sweden sent an email to 2 partners that was inconsistent with company policy. When he realized what he had done, he did the right thing by immediately reaching out to the two partners to address the situation. He contacted them by phone and email letting them know that they should disregard the mail. Here is what I know about this situation so far:

* 2 partners were sent an email making a request to participate in the Swedish process, telling them that they would be responsible for paying the membership fee if they did, but also making a related reference to marketing activities and extra support.
* Within hours both partners were contacted by the same MS employee who initiated the mail to notify them that the information in the email was incorrect and that they should disregard it.
* When the Microsoft Sweden management team became aware of the situation they proactively notified SIS, the national standards body, of this situation and shared the communications with them. There was no impact on the vote due to this situation.
* It is important to note that instructions from corporate to our regional teams around the world throughout this process have been to completely adhere to the rules of the national standards bodies, and that any party wishing to take part in the national standards body is directly responsible for paying any related fees. This means partners must decide whether to participate and vote based on their own determination as to the importance of this standard to their business. To say it more directly, offers to pay standards participation fees are totally inconsistent with our internal policy.

Organizations joining the committee late in the process:

Yes, many organizations joined the committee very late in the process. There were parties both for and against the vote that joined late. The local team did reach out to partners and encouraged them to join the process. Many of the partners had been called by IBM as well, encouraging them to join the process and to vote against the proposed standard. Many of these companies are business partners for both IBM and Microsoft and have business interests related to office automation technologies - thus, they were contacted by both firms. It is critical to note that the addition of voting members at that time was completely within the rules of the national standards body. While there are many arguments to be had over the relative merits of this rule...it is a rule nonetheless. If you are looking for other situations to think about - look at the late addition of Red Hat (and many others...I know) to Committee V1 in the United States. Their presence was simply to vote no - not based on deep technical review - but because it is in their business interests have Open XML fail to achieve ISO/IEC standardization. Google joining the SIS late is the same thing. So - for both sides, seeking to have participation of organizations with interests is within the boundaries of the rules.

The issue with the email is extremely unfortunate as it casts a pall over the hard work of so many, and the process as a whole. The S

For "benefits", read "cash"

[Eivind Eklund]

The Slashdot translation says:

In a letter from Microsoft, our business partners were informed that they were "expected" to participate in the SIS meeting and vote yes. As a compensation they would get "market benefits" and extra support in terms of Microsoft resources. What is translated as "market benefits" is originally "marknadsbidrag" - which, assuming Swedish is the same as my native tongue Norwegian in this area - means marketing subsidies, which would as far as I know usually be in the form of Microsoft paying for their partner's advertising. This is more or less direct cash for the companies, and can be substantial amounts.

Eivind.

Norway, too - sort of.

[catman]

The following letter was sent to the Norwegian ISO member by 37 Microsoft customers and partners. Look for the whole story on Groklaw soon. To
Standard Norge

for the attention of JCT-1 SC34 committee

Declaration in support of ISO acceptance of Open XML

I have been made aware that Norway is going to vote on the ECMA-standard Open XML some time in 2007, and that the Norwegian position in the matter will be decided in the Norwegian ISO committee (JCT-1 SC34) in Standard Norge. In this connection we feel that it is important that Standard Norge has knowledge of the position to this standard in the undersigned's activity.

By signing this declaration we want to point out the following to Standard Norge:

an ISO standardization of Open XML has large positive spin-off effects for IT industry in Norway, including our activity, our clients and business partners. Standardization will also have a large effect on future document standards in Norway.

We base this assertion on the following considerations:

A standardization of Open XML will insure backward compatibility with billions of existing documents — other existing formats do not satisfy this criterion. Several coexisting standards are not unusual. For example, in imaging there are the formats JPEG, GIF, PNG and TIFF. These exist side by side and serve different and overlapping purposes to the advantage of users. OpenXML does not rule out the use of other standards such as RTX, TXT, ODF, PDF etc. ISO standardization will on the other hand benefit interoperability among these standards. By making Open XML an internationally approved standard, it is ensured that the standard can communicate with other standards.

Therefore we wish, hereby, to express our full support for Open XML as an ISO standard.

JUST IN: Sweden will abstain

[Christian Engstrom]

The Swedish standards body SIS just issued a press release (pdf in Swedish) where they say that the vote has been declared invalid by the board of SIS, and that Sweden will abstain in the international vote (unless they manage to organize a new national vote before September 2, which the consider unlikely).

According to the press release, the reason for the decision was a technicality (that information suggested that one of the members had voted twice).

- Well, be that as it may, say I, but perhaps the uproar against the decision both in Sweden and internationally had something to do with. In any case, it sounds like a very fortunate technicality. ;)

SIS press release translated

[Christian Engstrom]

Here is a translation of the OOMXL press release from SIS today:

PRESS RELEASE
From SIS, Swedish Standards Institute
August 30, 2007

Office Open XML - SIS invalidates the vote

The swedish working group at SIS, Swedish Standards Institute, Document description languages SIS/TK 321/AG 17, decided in a vote on August 27, 2007, to vote yes to making Office Open XML an ISO standard. Today, the board of SIS decided to invalidate the vote.

The reason for the board's decision is that the SIS has information indicating that one of the participants of the working group cast more than one vote. This is not compatible with SIS rules, which stipulate that each project sponsor has only one vote. Thus, the decision has been taken solely based on SIS rules. The decision does not reflect a position on the subject matter.

Furthermore, the board considers it impossible for practical and formal reasons for the Swedish working group to arrange a new vote before September 2, 2007, when the global vote will be finished. If a new Swedish vote cannot be arranged, Sweden will abstain from voting.

Background
The proposal that Sweden has had under consideration is, briefly, about definig document formats for word processing, presentations, and spreadsheets. Office Open XML has its origins in the need to store electronic documents long term, and to be able to migrate files between different applications. The ISO vote will be finished on September 2, 2007.

SIS is an independent non-profit organization, where the members' needs and wishes decide the direction for the standardization work. The members come from companies, organizations, and authorities.

For further information etc...

Please feel free to share, improve, or use this translation as you wish. Sharing is caring. Arrr! :)