IBM behind OOXML loss, said Microsoft?

Last September 2007, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) initially did not approved Microsoft’s Office Open XML document (OOXML) . And now, Microsoft is blaming IBM to be the cause of ISO failure of approval. Read this:

Jean Paoli, Microsoft’s senior director of XML technology, said ,”Let’s be very clear. It has been fostered by a single company — IBM. If it was not for IBM, it would have been business as usual for this standard.”

Nicos Tsilas, senior director of interoperability and IP policy at Microsoft, said, “They have made this a religious and highly political debate. They are doing this because it is advancing their business model. Over 50 percent of IBM’s revenues come from consulting services.”

“IBM have asked governments to have an open-source, exclusive purchasing policy,” Tsilas said. “Our competitors have targeted this one product — mandating one document format over others to harm Microsoft’s profit stream.”

[ via ZDNet UK ]