The software giant Microsoft has a reason to celebrate. The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has rejected appeals against the file format of Open XML (OOXML). The countries such as Brazil, South Africa and Venezuela had challenged the ratification regarding file format of OOXML. The ISO had given OOXML as a title of international standard and asked the participant countries to file the appeal against the decision in two months.

The OOXML can now be published as an international standard following the decision of ISO. The final processing of the document is going on and it is expected to come in the market with in next few weeks. The OOXML standard of Micro soft is also supported by Apple, Novell, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, and Nasscom. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), India had rejected the open document format of OOXML in September last year.

The opponent of OOXML said that the format is not good and the Micro soft has rejected the opposition saying that the standard is supported by ECMA International. The current proxy for product competition will affect the future success of one of the most profitable product of Micro Soft-- Micro Soft office.

The format of OOXML is also opposed by IBM, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Google, the Department of Information Technology (DIT), National Informatics Centre (NIC), CDAC, IIT-Mumbai and IIM-Ahmedabad. These institutes supported the Open Document Format (ODF) terming it open and free to access on maintenance and support.

Microsoft on the other hand, said that OOXML is good because of round-trip compatibility and uncomplicated functionality.