The International Standards Organization (ISO) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have approved ISO/IEC DIS 29500, Office Open XML File Formats as an International Standard. Approval requires at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of national body votes cast negative. Both of these criteria were achieved, with 75 % of votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 being positive and only 14 % of all national votes cast being negative.

Open XML is a platform-independent open standard for word-processing documents, presentations and spreadsheets. The standard has been widely adopted by hundreds of organizations throughout the industry, and serves to ensure the long-term preservation of documents by maintaining compatibility and fostering continuing advances in the field of documents and information technology.

Independent software vendors, including Apple, Corel, Microsoft and Novell have already shipped implementations of the Open XML standard within popular applications such as iWork, iPhone, WordPerfect, Open Office and Microsoft Office 2007.

• Brian Jones: Open XML Overwhelmingly Approved as an ISO / IEC standard (IS 29500): the end of the file formats war
• Ecma Office Open XML Document Format Appears to Win Approval as an ISO/IEC Standard