ABNT (Brazilian Technical Standards Association) filed an appeal with ISO (International Standards Organization) against the decision to make Microsoft's electronic document format a global industry standard. ABNT wants the decision reconsidered.

The appeal was sent to ISO and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), the two bodies that approved the adoption of the format as standard.

In April, ISO announced that Microsoft had obtained sufficient support in the organization to certify the Office Open XML document format, a version of its standard format for filing Microsoft Office 2007 documents. With certification, the company can increase its chances of winning government contracts and encouraging developers to work on new applications and content.

In September last year, the request had been denied by ISO, which reconsidered the decision at a meeting held in March this year.

According to ABNT, which is a representative of ISO in Brazil, the meeting that approved the Microsoft format was inconclusive and some comments made by the country were not discussed. The body also claims that the final decision has not been officially published until today. Therefore, ABNT asks ISO to re-evaluate the matter – it was not requested that the decision be annulled, only reconsidered.

Case

IEC confirms Brazil’s appeal –India and South Africa also took similar action. "The resources were filed during this week," said Jonathan Buck, spokesperson for IEC.

According to Buck, IEC and ISO have 30 days to assess whether the resources are justified. If accepted, they will be evaluated by technical advice from both organizations. He stated that he could not give more details about the content of the actions because the process is confidential.

Among the companies, the opposition to the certification of Microsoft standard argued that the arrival of a competitor in the ODF format (Open Document Format), which already had the international standard certificate and was developed by a consortium headed by Sun Microsystems, ended with the proposal to formulate a standard.

Google, which uses the ODF standard in its document and spreadsheet editing applications, also integrated Microsoft's opponents group in this case. The company claimed factors such as the dependence of Office Open XML on Microsoft's proprietary formats.

ODF technology allows users to save documents in a variety of formats, including Microsoft. Although Office Open XML originally does not allow saving texts and spreadsheets like ODF files, Microsoft has decided to allow conversion.

[.Via sheet online.]