We have already covered (or at least commented on) OOXML stories from Australia [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11], but there is yet another one that arrives a week late. This new story is an interview with the chief.

Standards Australia has defended it's decision to abstain from the ISO (International Organisation for Standardization) and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) ballot to approve Microsoft's Office Open XML format as an international standard, saying Australia still has a chance to approve or disapprove the vote.

As we have seen before, people at the top are probably most susceptible to foreign influence. We saw that in Switzerland, for example. LinuxWorld appears to have contacted the wrong person. He says that Microsoft did not influence the decision, but past posts of ours beg to differ, based on some concrete evidence. Of course the head of the standards body will say that everything went alright. The journalists need to ask those who needn't defend a broken system. An attendants of the meeting in Australia said that a report deceived on IBM's (non-existent) affiliation with CompTIA, a Microsoft lobbyist. Anonymity is sometimes required for honesty.

Speaking of IBM, there's more good news for ODF.

IBM's move to throw its weight behind the ODF-based OpenOffice.org is proof that rivals see a chink in the Microsoft Office armor just as many organizations, particularly governments, are evaluating open document formats.

More details will be revealed next week. On the face of it, OpenOffice.org will be better integrated with some other open source E-mail clients and collaboration software. Mozilla, anyone?

Related articles:

• OSIA takes issue with OOXML, lobbies Standards Australia
• Report from Australia - the OOXML Forum