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Denmark changes OOXML vote to 'yes'

David Meyer and Peter Judge ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 28 Mar 2008 15:47 GMT

Denmark has decided to back Microsoft's Office Open XML document format, reversing its previous disapproval and bringing the format closer to fast-track approval by the International Organization for Standardization.

According to a Friday statement on the website of Danish Standards (the Danish equivalent of the British Standards Institution, or BSI), the country's previous vote of "disapproval with comments" on the original draft of the OOXML standard has now been changed to a vote of "approval".

The statement goes on to say that Danish Standards is changing its vote because "the 168 Danish comments have been adopted as changes to ISO/IEC DIS 29500 OOXML".

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Denmark's change of vote enables OOXML to pass one of two criteria to becoming a standard — that fewer than 25 percent of the large group of bodies "observing" the process disapprove. However, OOXML is still three short of the positive votes required amongst the 32 standards bodies "participating" in the process. Some of these are wavering, however.

It is known that the technical committee advising Britain's BSI has changed its recommendation, meaning Britain may also change its vote from "no" to "yes". However, BSI has refused to say whether its policy group will adopt a "yes" position, until after the deadline of midnight on Saturday.