An adhoc committee of the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) is to recommend that Ireland abstains in an upcoming international vote on whether the format used for Microsoft Office files should be accepted as an International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) standard.

Microsoft's Open XML standard was accepted as a standard by Ecma International, a body made up of European computer manufacturers, last December. As Ecma is affiliated with ISO, Microsoft is now looking to have its adoption as an ISO standard fast-tracked. This requires individual ISO member countries to vote in favour of fast-tracking Microsoft's application.

Antoin O'Lachtnain of Evertype, who sat on the NSAI committee, confirmed that it will advise the NSAI to abstain in the vote on Open XML. The deadline for voting at ISO is September 2nd next and all 157 member countries are entitled to vote.

Mr O'Lachtnain said he pushed for a yes vote with qualification as he feels the move to standardise the format is a sign of Microsoft becoming more open, but he feels the standard should be improved before it is adopted.

Many national standards bodies have complained that the Microsoft documentation defining the format is 6,000 pages long and even then is not clear on all aspects of how it operates. Those pushing for Open XML to be rejected say that many elements of the format are are known only to Microsoft.

A rival format, supported by Sun Microsystem's Star Office, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, the open-source OpenOffice and other less popular productivity software, is the Open Document Format (ODF) for XML. It has already been approved by the ISO.

Seán Foley, head of the developer and platform group with Microsoft Ireland, and a member of the NSAI committee, says that because Office is the most widely-used document format, it is essential that it is managed as a standard by the group of nations making up the ISO. Unlike ODF, he says Open XML is backward compatible with all previous versions of Microsoft Office.

The reason why this issue has become so vexed internationally is that proponents of open standards do not believe it is healthy that Microsoft controls the underlying code behind the technology. Without Microsoft's proprietary information, it may not be possible to open documents created in Office.

Sources close to the Irish committee's deliberations say that political pressure was brought to bear, with some members saying a qualified yes vote would have sent out the wrong signals. Those who sat on the committee with a purely technical background wanted Ireland to conditionally approve the adoption of Open XML, but with Microsoft requested to make a number of changes before it was approved.

Edmund Gray from CP3 Group also sat on the committee and believes that concerns over the finer details of Open XML are overplayed.

"Open XML is already out there and is being used by millions of people - let's just grab it and bring it in," he says.