European Commission’s antitrust regulatory body sent queries to some European countries to check the progress of this standards-setting process - and who can blame them? The September vote saw Microsoft lose, and the recent one saw them snatch a convincing victory – something that probably has more to do with quality lobbying than the actual standard.

There have been reports of irregularities up to the latest vote, most notably a Google employee who opposed Open XML, joining the Danish national committee only three days before the vote.

The head of the committee supposed to form Norway’s position on Open XML wrote a letter to the ISO saying that the country’s changed vote “did not represent the view of most committee members.” However, Standards Norway states that the position will remain unchanged.

It’s quite sad to see that lobbying, not the actual standard, is what wins games, and it’s probably the end users who’ll pay the price. Still, the thing that concerns yours truly most is this – the word Microsoft and the word Open seem to have very little in common. And no, I don’t think they can lobby for that.