NoOOXML

See the Cnet article Russia blindly votes for Microsoft office standard:

Russia blindly votes for Microsoft office standard

September 12, 2007, Wed 5:51 PM Moscow

The Russian IT-community has been surprised at Russia to approve of using Office OpenXML, developed by Microsoft in cooperation with other companies, as an international standard. However, the most striking was the fact that the Russian representatives proposed no remarks and supplements to the standard. At present the question whether Russia might make any amendments by February, 2008 remains open.
On August, 27th, 2007 Russia approved of Office OpenXML to become an international ISO standard. Nataliya Shevchenko, Cief Specialist of the International Cooperation Department of the Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology and ISO Manager in Russia voted for Russia. Mrs. Shevchenko tells CNews Evgeny Petrosyan, Deputy Director of the Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology informed her about the necessity to vote for the standard. CNews was not able to get in touch with Evgeny Petrosyan when preparing the publication. The Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology promised to give comments in the near future.

However, IT-community was greatly surprised by Russia having made no remarks and supplements, as most experts and ordinary users point out to some problems in Office OpenXML to be settled.

CNews found out the Russian Technical Committee Information Technology, which was to study OpenXML, did not cope with the task in time and handed down no expert opinion. Askold Piavchenko, the Russian Technical Committee Information Technology Chairman tells CNews “they were to speed up OpenXML study, so 6 thousand pages were to be studied in half a year”.

Finally, a special session of the Technical Committee was held, where Mr. Piavchenko said half a year was not enough to study the standard in due case, so he recommended not to vote. Those present at the session and aware of the study results approve of the given point of view. “We reached a consensus at the session. However, as we were to speed up the standard study, we were able only to express our point of view, the final decision being made by the officials. So another decision was made”, - Askold Piavchenko noted.

The Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology did not pay attention to the Technical Committee recommendations and insisted on a positive voting
The Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology did not pay attention to the Technical Committee recommendations and insisted on a positive voting

Besides, the Technical Committee Chairman tells CNews he proposed to carry out a scientific research regarding OpenXML as compared to its alternatives, and came to an agreement with Vladimir Sukhomlin, Moscow State University Professor. “If works are to be continued and corresponding finance allocated then the study will be carried out, and, I believe, we might finish by February, 2008 and hand down our expert opinion”, - Mr. Piavchenko believes.

Viktor Alksnis, the State Duma deputy has already sent his claim to the Federal Agency on Technical Regulating and Metrology demanding to clarify the mentioned situation. According to Mr. Alksnis, “the story smells badly. Even not knowing the details one can say the situation is not easy to resolve. It is not clear why ODF being accepted as an international standard is not implemented in Russia. We are to use the experience of developed countries, as we know .doc and .xls formats used in Microsoft Office do not always operate properly and rise many problems to be solved. So, there are certain reasons to suspect Microsoft interests to be lobbied at all levels. Certain people using their official position act in favor of the US Corporation. If it turns out to be true, then we are to rap their knuckles”.

Finally Victor Alksnis says “we are to operate in favor of our national interests and the Russian IT-industry, but not in favor of the Americans. If OpenXML is really such a nice product, then why not holding overall discussions attracting specialists. If IBM, Novell, Sun and other large corporations are against OpenXML, then we are to defer to their point of view and not to the opinion of one corporati on only. So we are not to hurry and to make the right decision”.

OpenXML as ODF is a unified office file format. It makes it possible to look through various files regardless their type and the supplement version used. Last May ODF was adopted as an ISO-standard.