Microsoft (technically Ecma International) has initiated the ISO standardization process for Ecmas Office Open XML, Microsoft's response to requests that it support the OpenDocument standard. The attached documents were sent by Emca to all JTC1 members in addition to the specification. The specification itself can be downloaded here, or in hunks from here. (Very large documents alert.)

In particular I'll draw your attention to JTC001-N-8455-4.pdf. This is a summary whitepaper where Ecma makes the case for why this is a wonderful standard. At 17 pages in length, I'd expect that most national body members will read this and nothing else. It contains such effusive praise as:

4 PROPERTIES OF THE STANDARD

This section prepares you to investigate OpenXML by describing some of its high-level properties. Each subsection describes one of these properties and refers to specific features within OpenXML.

.... “Interoperability” describes how OpenXML is independent of proprietary formats, features, and run-time environment, allowing developers a broad range of choices.

.... “Internationalization” mentions a few representative ways in which OpenXML supports every major language group.

.... “Low Barrier to Developer Adoption”, “Compactness”, and “Modularity” list specific ways in which OpenXML avoids or removes practical impediments to implementation by diverse parties: learning curve, minimum feature set, and performance.

.... “High Fidelity Migration” describes how OpenXML meets the over-arching goal to preserve the information, including the original creator’s full intent, in existing and new documents.

.... “Integration with Business Data” describes how OpenXML incorporates business information in custom schemas to enable integration and reuse of information between productivity applications and information systems.

.... “Room for Innovation” describes how OpenXML prepares for the future by defining further extensibility mechanisms and providing for interoperability between applications with differing feature sets.

Low barrier to adoption? Compactness? Prepares for the future? My brain brings to mind a specification of over 6,000 pages that can only be implemented by a single vendor and a covenant not to sue that grants rights (if any at all) only for the current version of the Ecma specification. Might one suspect that someone forgot to get their annual spin innoculation?

The full and official specification for EOOXML can be downloaded here. The accompanying documents are downloadable from this site and linked below.