By Lee Min Keong
Wednesday, April 02 2008 08:18 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62039739,00.htm

MALAYSIA--The country has maintained its abstention in the controversial ballot on whether Microsoft's Open XML (OOXML) document format should be an ISO standard, reveal local IT industry players.

While national standards body Standards Malaysia, has yet to formally confirm its decision on the issue, OOXML detractors are already questioning the country's position undertaken by Malaysia's newly appointed Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation.

According to local blog site Open Malaysia, some industry players said they received a text message from the Director General of Standards Malaysia Fadilah Baharin, confirming that Malaysia "maintained its abstention vote on the OOXML".

However, Standards Malaysia is keeping mum on its final vote. "We would like to inform you that Malaysia has submitted our vote to ISO and we have no further information at the moment," said Shahnaz Rakhmat, assistant director at Standards Malaysia, in an e-mail reply to ZDNet Asia.

When contacted, a Microsoft Malaysia spokesperson also declined comment on the country's final vote "out of respect for ISO/IEC". He noted in an e-mail interview that the software vendor would "only comment after the formal publication of the results by ISO/IEC".

Microsoft's global headquarters released a statement Tuesday noting its acknowledgement of unofficial tallies that indicate OOXML's ratification as an ISO standard.

"With 86 percent of voting national bodies supporting ratification, there is overwhelming support for Open XML," Tom Robertson, Microsoft's general manager of interoperability and standards said in the statement. "The input from technical experts, customers and governments around the world has greatly improved the Open XML specification and will make it even more useful to developers and customers."

Minister ignored objections
According to Open Malaysia, the Malaysian Industrial Standards Committee for IT (ISC-G) took a vote on Mar. 27 to decide the country's stance on the OOXML-ISO vote, with 13 disapprovals, five abstentions and only three approvals.

By eventually taking the decision to abstain in the OOXML ISO ballot, Maximus Ongkili, who is two weeks into the job as Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation--following the country's Mar. 8 general elections--appeared to have ignored the ISC-G's majority "disapprove" vote.

More significantly, Ongkili's ministry and Standards Malaysia were among the five abstention votes. The Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom), government IT research body Mimos and the Multimedia Development (MDeC) voted to approve.

Yong Yoon Kit, open source and pro-ODF (Open Document Format) activist, noted in his blog Mar. 31 that there was "good consensus" amongst industry players, government agencies and end-users that OOXML is "not ready for standardization".

Yong added: "Although it is a resounding 'disapprove' from the ISC-G, with a super majority of 81 percent [vote], this was not the final position of Malaysia on this issue as the decision ultimately resides on the shoulders of the Minister of Science Technology and Innovation."

However, a pro-OOXML industry source--who declined to be named--argued that the three approvals--by Pikom, Mimos and the MDeC--represented the interests of the vast majority of Malaysia's ICT industry. Pikom, for example, has over 750 members comprising companies involved in various ICT products and services which command 80 per cent of the country's total ICT trade.

"Mimos is the R&D (research and development) organization that functions as an advisor to the Malaysian government on technologies, policies and strategies relating to technology development, while the MDeC spearheads the development of Malaysia's nationally strategic MSC project," he told ZDNet Asia.

When contacted, IBM Malaysia declined to comment on Malaysia's vote and how rival standard ODF--supported by most open source advocates, including Sun Microsystems and IBM--will be impacted with the adoption of OOXML as an international standard.

IBM executives reportedly lobbied against Microsoft's standards bid, arguing that OOXML was redundant in the presence of the ODF standard, technically flawed and not sufficiently "open".

Lee Min Keong is a freelance IT writer based in Malaysia.