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ISO announced earlier today that it would announce the results of the ballot tomorrow (2 April). Earlier today, Microsoft said it would "respect ISO's desire to first inform its National Body members and all the people who have worked so hard during this process."

Now, the company has had a change of heart and issued a statement claiming it "appears" to have won approval.

"While the final vote has not yet been announced formally, publicly available information appears to indicate the proposed Open XML standard received extremely broad support," Microsoft's statement claims.

"According to documents available on the internet, 86% of all voting national body members support ISO/IEC standardisation, well above the 75% requirement for formal acceptance

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under ISO and IEC rules.

"In addition, 75% of the voting Participating national body members (known as P-members) support standardisation, also well above the 66.7% requirement for this group.

"Open XML now joins HTML, PDF and ODF as ISO- and IEC-recognised open document format standards."

Quite why Microsoft has decided to break ranks and declare victory before the official result is unclear. Presumably the company has already been informed of the final count itself, or else it faces huge embarrassment when ISO's official announcement appears.

The outcome will upset many, after yet more allegations of voting irregularities. The chairman of Norway's voting body has reportedly filed an official protest after claiming that 80% of the country's committee was against changing its vote from No to Yes. Other countries have reported similar discrepancies.

Microsoft lost the first vote to have OOXML fast-tracked last September, amid allegations of vote rigging that were fiercely denied by Microsoft.

"With 86% of voting national bodies supporting ratification, there is overwhelming support for Open XML," claims Tom Robertson, general manager of interoperability and standards at Microsoft.

"This outcome is a clear win for the customers, technology providers and governments that want to choose the format that best meets their needs and have a voice in the evolution of this widely adopted standard."