Microsoft accused of ballot stuffing in standards vote
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Hot Swedish XML action Microsoft has been accused of rigging a vote on the ratification of Office Open XML (OOXML) as an international standard at a government body in Sweden.â¦
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Also: E-voting a 'threat' to UK democracy. Read these stories and more from around the Web on News.com Extra.
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(InfoWorld) - The Swedish Standards Institute has declared its recent vote in favor of Microsoft's Office Open XML format invalid. It means that Sweden will probably abstain from an important upcoming international vote on whether to make the format a standard. The reason given by SIS was not the controversial circumstances surrounding the vote, in which Microsoft was found to have offered companies "incentives" if they voted in favor of OOXML. Instead, SIS cited a technicality, saying proper procedures had not been followed. "It appears that one of the organizations that took part had two votes. Since the rules weren't followed, the decision made earlier is void," SIS president Lars Flink told IDG's Computer Sweden. A new vote will now be held. It probably won't be possible to arrange it by Sunday, however, the deadline for countries to submit their votes on whether to standardize the format to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The ISO will then tally the results and publish the result early next week, possibly by Monday. "The board of SIS knows that there is not much time, which means that Sweden won't take part [in the ISO vote], although we won't know for certain until Sunday," Flink said. He denied that the storm of criticism directed at the vote was behind SIS's decision to declare its vote invalid. "The vote has been criticized, but that is not the reason for our decision," he said. "The sole reason is that one of the companies that voted cast more than one vote. No member company has more than one vote." The original decision to accept OOXML as an ISO standard was taken by the Swedish working group on Monday. Microsoft Sweden was later found to have offered extra "marketing contributions" to its business partners to encourage them to vote for OOXML, according to e-mails seen by Computer Sweden. A Microsoft manager said this week that the e-mail "should never have been sent." SIS said it is now "practically and formally impossible for the Swedish working group to arrange a new vote before September, 2, 2007, when the global vote is closed. If a new Swedish vote cannot be arranged, Sweden will abstain from voting." About 100 countries will take part in the vote. OOXML is Microsoft's rival to the Open Document Format (ODF), which is used by applications including OpenOffice.org and Star Office. ODF has already been adopted by the ISO as an international standard, but Microsoft is pushing ISO to have OOXML adopted as well.
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Plans to combat spam are in trouble because Microsoft wants too much power, argues technology analyst Bill Thompson. The internet relies on a large number of technical standards which define in precise and
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(InfoWorld) - Google, which has been less vocal than some on the furor surrounding the standards process for Microsoft's Office Open XML, came out Friday in support ofÂ the ISO's decision to reject the specification. In a post on its internal Google Code blog, Open Source Programs Manager Zaheda Bhorat said that the company agreed with the decision of the International Organization for Standardization not to approve the fast track of OOXML and listed some of the problems company engineers have with the format. The ISO voted earlier this month to reject an attempt by Microsoft to use another standards body, Ecma International, to fast track its XML-based file format OOXML through the process to become an international standard. The process was riddled with complaints that Microsoft placed people sympathetic to its cause in key voting positions toward the end of the process in an attempt to swing the vote in its favor. The company's decision to submit OOXML to Ecma and then the ISO has been controversialÂ as ODF (Open Document Format), which many rivals support, already is an ISO standard for XML-based documents. In fact, one of the problems Bhorat cited for why Google disapproves of OOXML is that it is incompatible with ODF. Other reasons Google supports the ISO decision are that the company believes there was not enough time to review the specification; there are undocumented features of OOXML that prevent implementation by other vendors; and dependencies on Microsoft proprietary formats and technical defects makes OOXML difficult to fully implement, according to the blog post. "Technical standards should be arrived at transparently, openly, and based on technical merit," Bhorat wrote on the blog. "Google is committed to helping the standards community remain true to this ideal and maintain their independence from any commercial pressure." Bhorat also used the post to stump for ODF, which Google supports in its Web-based office applications. IBM, Sun, and other Microsoft rivals also are vocal supporters of ODF. "With multiple implementations of one open standard for documents, users, businesses, and governments around the world can have both choice and freedom to access their own documents, share with others, and pass onto future generations," Bhorat wrote. Issues raised by Google and technical experts about OOXML during the voting process are set to be resolved at an ISO ballot resolution meeting been scheduled for Feb. 25-29, 2008.
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The executive board of the INCITS standards body voted yesterday to approve the recommendation of Microsoft's Office Open XML standard to the International Standards Organization as Draft International Standard 29500, once concerns voiced by some of its members have been attached and adequately addressed by Microsoft. The vote was 12 yea, 3 nay, and one abstention - again by the IEEE.
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MICROSOFT IS facing a fresh onslaught over alleged antitrust activities, with authorities in San Francisco and Los Angeles claiming that its products have adversely affected civil servants and local government functionaries.
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The European Union's top competition   regulator clashed with Microsoft on Tuesday over security   upgrades in the U.S. software giant's new Windows Vista   operating system in a re-run of past antitrust battles.
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With less than six weeks to go before the Nov. 2 presidential election, voting activists said officials still have time to set up a paper trail as a counterweight to an e-voting system they portrayed as wide open to manipulation.
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Did Redmond try to pack standards groups? Microsoft's failed attempt to get its Office Open XML (OOXML) file format adopted by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) could land the software giant in hot water with the European Commission (EC).â¦
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In the wake of curious surges in the memberships of national standards bodies, as well as the ISO, prior to upcoming votes to recommend or approve the adoption of Microsoft's Office Open XML as an international standard, the Linux Foundation today pleaded with voters worldwide (both old and new) to listen to reason before making their decisions.
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.NET patch trips up systems Early reports are suggesting problems after users apply one of the six patches issued by Microsoft on Tuesday.â¦
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A September hearing will probe Election Systems & Software's possible violation of state election laws for allegedly selling uncertified voting machines to California counties. The company faces the possibility of millions of dollars in fines and other punitive measures.
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The record use of electronic voting machines on Nov. 2 led to hundreds of voting irregularities and shows the need for higher standards, a voting rights group said Thursday.
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BREAKING NEWS - Early this morning, Microsoft reported it had been notified that its Office Open XML format received a 74% positive vote in a preliminary ballot that could pave the way for its final ratification as an international standard.
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Worried about 'personal agendas' Electronic voting machines vendor Election Systems &amp; Software Inc. has finally given in to demands by California's Secretary of State office that it submit the source code used in one of its products. But it made it abundantly clear it is unhappy about the requirement.â¦
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A technical working group at the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) last weekend voted to veto a proposal by Microsoft that was designed to identify the real source of email messages.