Reversing a loss in first-round voting, the International Organization for Standardization approved Microsoft’s Office Open XML as an international standards designation for its open-document format.

A 157-country NGO based in Geneva, ISO approval will influence software spending by governments and large companies.

Ten countries opposed the standard: Brazil, Canada, China, Cuba, Ecuador, India, Iran, New Zealand, So. Africa and Venezuela.

IBM and Sun Microsystems (with a rival interchangeable document format called Open Document Format) fought against Microsoft.

Go ISO’s OOXML