The International Standards Organization (ISO) agreed Saturday to put Open XML, the document format created and championed by Microsoft Corp., on a fast-track approval process that could see Open XML ratified as an international standard by August.

That�s despite lingering opposition to Open XML by several key voting countries, including some of whom whose governments are moving forward to adopt the alternative Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) format, which the ISO approved as a standard last year.

According to an e-mail sent Saturday by Lisa Rajchel, the secretariat of ISO�s Joint Technical Committee (JTC-1) on Information Technology, the Open XML proposal, along with comments and criticism by nations that have already reviewed it, will be put on the ISO�s five-month balloting process.

The e-mail did not give a date when the proposal would officially be put on a ballot and distributed to all 157 countries represented in the ISO, though it is likely to happen this week, according to Stacy Leistner, director of communications at the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is assisting the ISO in this issue.