"The positive thing about the process itself is that all the technical concerns and defects [in the specification] come out," says Marino Marcich, executive director of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) Alliance.

The alliance recently has been helping states draft open document legislation in addition to speaking out against the standardization of ooXML and battling Microsoft to control the message concerning open document standards and the ISO process.

After the Sept. 2 vote, consideration on holding a BRM can take one of two courses. It can be held to address questions whose answers could change "no" votes to "yes" and possibly foster a re-vote in the spring, or the BRM can be canceled for one of two reasons.

Cancellation will happen if the concerns surrounding ooXML are deemed unresolvable. The other reason would be the lack of comments that are required to be addressed.

The latter was the case when ODF was approved by the ISO as a standard in May 2006. But clearly that will not happen with ooXML because some countries have already indicated they plan to vote "no with comments."

The former is a possibility if the comments raised highlight that the specification is unworkable as a standard. Precedence for that occurring came just last year with the C++/CLI (Common Language Infrastructure) specification that also was developed by Microsoft and standardized by Ecma. The ISO ultimately did not standardize C++/CLI.

The conclusion is that whatever happens Sept. 2 and whatever spin is put on the results by Microsoft or the opponents to ooXML, the question of ISO standardization is far from over.