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BSI SET TO RENEGE ON UK NATIVE IT INDUSTRY

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BSI SET TO RENEGE ON UK NATIVE IT INDUSTRY

Written by Stop Watch Web Limited
Friday, 28 March 2008
Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) looks set to be recommended to the United Kingdom's British Standards Institution, according to Chanel Register. This is a complete volte face from its position last autumn and a slap in the face for the British IT industry as a whole. Practitioners are feeling badly let down. After having been fined £681 Million earlier this year for failure to comply with standards themselves, they appear to be a very dubious candidate to be asked to set standards. Disastrously for IT practitioners in the UK and worldwide Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) looks set to be recommended to the United Kingdom's British Standards Institution (BSI), according to Chanel Register . The Channel Register forms part of the British online journal The Register. This is a complete volte face from the BSI's position last autumn and a slap in the face for the British IT industry as a whole. Practitioners fail to see how a single platform application can constitute a standard other than internally to that business and are currently feeling badly let down. After having been fined £681 Million earlier this year and receiving heavy fines in each of the previous two or three years for failure to comply to standards themselves, they appear to be a very dubious candidate to be asked to set standards. The fines were inposed by the EU Competition Commission. We are given to believe that the technical group which makes recommendations to the policy making panel has changed its mind by a staggering switch from being against to five to one in favour. That is a very big swing in a short space of time. It is hard to see any reasonable argument and many question whether political pressure has been brought to bear. The technical group is chaired by Francis Cave. Has he been "got at"? It is not too late to express your views. Please call the BSI on +44 (0)20 8996 9001 or email them at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (if you are British) and tell them you are very disappointed to hear this appalling news. The vote is tomorrow (Saturday) so please act immediately. Brazil and India, among others, have already voted against. If we can get our own standards authority to say no, the proposal falls. Given Microsoft Corporation's track record with respect to anti-competitive behaviour, that has to be a good thing even if the single platform issue were not present. They were fined . All were from the EU Competition Commission. It is the The ICT/-/1 (that's its name) committee of the BSI which makes the decision and cave's technical group is called IST/41. More details in a fresh article at http://www.stopwatchweb.net - the article will be updated as news comes in; by phone to its author, Mike Goodman on 01924 443335 or 07743 825093 Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these?

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