04.18.08
It’s Almost Official: ISO is Controlled by Microsoft, by Insiders
ISO can twist, shout or even whine about personal attacks all it wants. It knows very well that it has too much to hide and its damage control attempts have thus far done more harm than good [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].
When it comes to actual proof, too much evidence was gathered which shows that it had probably been corrupted (just like most parties that were involved in this saga since the early days). Here is some of the latest.
Recall our previous post about Alex Brown and the British Library. For some reason, anti-FOSS brigadier Jeff Gould has just reposted this copy of one press release that serves as another smoking gun against ISO, which has conflicting interests where Microsoft is concerned. This was also caught by linux.com just hours ago. We append this press release to this item for future reference.
The same press release was sent to us yesterday by someone whose name shall not be disclosed but whose level of authority is high. He added:
“As Dr Alex Brown says in his own words:
“Alex Brown was convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process, and has recently been appointed to the panel to advise the British Library”
“So, the guy stands to make a bundle out of doing Microsoft’s dirty work, he was responsible for the BSI change of position, and he’s been given an advisory post to the British Library (known Microsoft glove-puppet) as well.
“No conflict of interest there then…”
According to this new post from ZDNet, plenty of time remains for an appeal. How much more evidence is needed to show the extent of this fiasco?
Outspoken OOXML opponents Sun and IBM have not commented on possible plans for an appeal. But at least one spokesman for the ODF Alliance said it’s too early to tell.
“I wouldn’t be surprised, given the number of documented irregularities, if an [national standard body] formally appeals. ISO rules require that an appeal be fully documented so I would expect an NB considering such a appeal to use more of the time (two months) allotted,” said Marino Marcich, a spokesman for the ODF Allliance, in an e-mail to ZDNet.
If in doubt, watch this older post about Alex Brown and the British Library. Then consider the gradually-accumulating findings about the BSI. Yes, again. It’s almost as though the man handling OOXML at ISO and the BSI is a Microsoft pawn. And he’s probably not alone according to the previous convenor who fled to retire. ISO should come out of its bunker and make some confessions already. It’s its duty as a body that used to thrive in trust and integrity before getting captured by a predatory vendor. █
As OOXML gains approval to become an International Standard, XML is poised to take centre stage for the future of high value data content storage
Press Release
17 April 2008
As OOXML gains approval to become an International Standard, XML is poised to take centre stage for the future of high value data content storage
Valuable business data held in Microsoft Office documents now visible and usable
XML is now poised to consolidate its position as the dominant format for high value business data according to Dr Alex Brown, director of Griffin Brown, an industry leading data quality specialist and convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process.
Dr Brown commented, “Despite the huge controversy surrounding it, the standardisation of Open Office XML (OOXML) is great news for business. As the large majority of organisations in the developed world use Microsoft desktop applications, it is a significant step forward that data held within these documents can now be accessed by any XML tool. This finally opens the way for legacy documents to be accessible for compliance, audit trail, archiving and even migration to other, non-Microsoft, systems.”
ISO/IEC DIS 29500 was originally developed as the Office Open XML Specification by Microsoft Corporation which submitted it to Ecma International, an information technology industry association, for transposing into an ECMA standard and subsequently published as ECMA standard 376.
Ecma International then submitted the standard in December 2006 to ISO/IEC JTC 1, with whom it has category A liaison status, for adoption as an International Standard.
Since it is based on XML, Office Open XML is a platform-independent standard for word-processing documents, presentations and spreadsheets. The standard, which has been trialed by hundreds of organisations, has now received the necessary votes for approval as an International Standard. Independent software vendors, including Apple, Corel, Microsoft and Novell have already shipped implementations of the Open XML standard within popular applications such as iWork, iPhone, WordPerfect, Open Office and Microsoft Office 2007. The new standard will ensure that billions of documents created during the last twenty years, will continue to be forwards compatible with new technologies and applications.
Dr Brown went on to say, “We are reaching the mature stage of the Information Economy where successful organisations rely upon data to support their core business. Now that OOXML is to become one of ISO’s standard document formats alongside PDF and ODF, it brings previously opaque office content into a format where it can reused and repurposed, while monitoring and improving its quality.”
-ends-
NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Dr Alex Brown
Alex Brown was convenor of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Ballot Resolution Process, and has recently been appointed to the panel to advise the British Library on how to handle digital submission of journal articles.
About Griffin Brown
Founded in 1997, Griffin Brown is based in the heart of ‘Silicon Fen’ in Cambridgeshire, UK. Griffin Brown provides Data Quality solutions and services to commercial publishers, financial, legal and research organisations and government departments.
XMLProbe offers breakthrough technology for automated XML quality management by providing an effective and flexible XML quality assurance system.
XMLProbe enables organisations to:
· Reduce costs caused by poor-quality XML data
· Ensure standards compliance for submission and receipting systems
· Go beyond the level of validation that XML DTDs and Schemas offer
· Have the means to implement an effective XML data quality policy
· Manage content by producing informative at-a-glance quality reports
Some of the world’s largest publishers use Griffin Brown Data Quality software to improve the quality of their structured content and drive down processing costs, including Cambridge University Press, Blackwell Publishing and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain.
Griffin Brown is privately owned, backed by seed capital from current and former employees.
For more information please visit: www.griffinbrown.co.uk
Editors Contacts:
Dr Alex Brown
Director
Griffin Brown
Tel: +44 (1223) 425730
Email: alex@griffinbrown.co.uk
Andreina West
PR Artistry Limited
Tel: +44 1491 639500
email: andreina@pra-ltd.co.uk
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Logan said,
April 18, 2008 at 2:31 am
The press release is full of lies and nonsense. But, this nothing new. What is also not new is the fact that these types of press releases are created to promote their own products and are so motivated by financial interests.
The average idiot that used Microsoft products and is stuck with them is now convinced that world is a wonderful place where his files going back to Office 95 are now magically converted to this new and magical file format. Completely unaware of the fact that the file format not even exist.
A sucker is born everyday and good riddance.
More opportunities for Microsoft and its business partners to suck them dry.
It’s was always a question of Microsoft and its parasitic friends financial interests. I’m so glad that Novell is one of them.
Roy Schestowitz said,
April 18, 2008 at 2:56 am
Microsoft unleashed a viral video some days ago and it was exceptionally successful at invading many blogs. What I found amusing in it was the mentioning of the “Microsoft ecosystem” in it. Always follow the money.
Alex Kavanagh said,
April 18, 2008 at 4:13 am
I’m now left in no doubt that the convener for the BSI disregarded the the advise of the technical committee when changing the BSI’s position from No to Yes.
So how do we clean up the BSI and make it non-partisan and actually approve standards on their technical merit, not the economic and political clout of the standard’s sponsors? I’d say the first step is to ditch people like Dr Alex Brown, starting with Dr Alex Brown. I think we should call for his immediate removal from the ISO/BSI committees as he has nailed his colours to the mast.