India Says No To OOXML

A 21 member committee has given a thumbs down to OOXML - Microsoft’s standard for office documents - as a standard. The same will be submitted to ISO. First OOXML was not given the fast-track treatment, and now it seems to be facing more-than-expected opposition. China and India both have rejected it, while Malaysia, Denmark and Switzerland have supported it.

There is a campaign against standardizing OOXML. The people and companies behind ODF are already opposing it. I personally think, two standards for the same purpose hurt. They do not hurt companies and businesses, but they hurt the common man. Of course there are technical issues, which might get solved, but having competing standards beats the original purpose of having a standard itself.