The ISO/IEC DIS 29500 Project Editor is on track to produce a final document by mid-January 2008, containing proposed dispositions of all comments received during the ballot period. Today, Ecma TC45 is publishing proposed dispositions to a number of additional comments. Today�s posting brings the total of comments with proposed dispositions to 1,766, or 50.1% of the 3,522 total comments received across all 87 voting countries.

In response to the comments provided by National Standards Bodies around the world, Ecma is offering numerous changes to the Open XML standard that will ultimately improve the format.

Ecma, together with the Editor, will continue to review the remaining National Body comments in the weeks ahead, and provide proposed dispositions as quickly as possible leading up to the mid-January deadline. These proposed comment dispositions will be available to National Bodies via a website portal in order to solicit feedback from National Bodies to the Project Editor, in application of the ISO/IEC confidentiality principles.

Ecma looks forward to continued cooperation and collaboration with ISO, IEC, and ISO/IEC JTC 1.

This update proposes some significant changes that we believe address a number of the National Bodies� concerns. We believe these changes strengthen the Open XML standard, better serving its users.

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