Due to objections from four countries, the International Organization for Standardization has temporarily put a hold on publishing Microsoft Office Open XML as an ISO standard.
Four countries -- Brazil, India, South Africa and Venezuela -- have submitted appeals against the ISO approval of ISO/IEC DIS 29500, the ISO designation for Microsoft OOXML.
According to the rules set by ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission, boards of both groups will review the objections and, if found to be warranted, attempt to reconcile the differences.