The betting among those who have been tracking Microsoft’s pursuit of international standards recognition for its Open Office XML formats (the voting by national standards bodies closed at the weekend) is that the software company will emerge victorious.

If correct, this is a significant breakthrough for Microsoft. To have lost would have handed a huge victory to the IBM-backed Open Document Format. The blessing of the ISO, on the other hand, would serve to further cement the de-facto standard that already exists around Office. Read more