The ISO can be yours for the low, low price of $2,444!
by Ruth Suehle
Microsoft accused of ballot stuffing in standards vote
Swedish internet pioneer Patrik Falstrom has accused Microsoft of bussing in local partners to a Swedish Standards Institute (SIS) meeting on OSI ratification of OOXML. The specification is already used by Microsoft in Office 2003, 2007 and XP.
The partners had not participated in the SIS’s earlier OOXML discussions but paid their admission fee and gave OOXML a resounding 25 “yes” votes compared to six “no” votes and three abstentions. It was believed OOXML was heading to a certain defeat had Microsoft’s supporters not turned out en masse.
To be able to vote all you need is to pay the membership fee to SIS and the total cost for this was 17.000 SEK (2444 USD). Of the 23 new companies that showed up this last minute and where the majority hasn’t shown any earlier interest, only Google has a clear agenda regarding OOXML and they are against it.
Jonas Bosson who participated in today’s meeting on behalf on FFII said that he left the meeting in protest and so did also IBM’s Swedish local representative Johan Westman.
