Open XML - Lets get it ratified
One of the things Microsoft gets nailed by customers on is proprietary standards. We saw lots of this objection in the 90's around protocols and Office file formats. Since then I think we've made some pretty significant inroads into changing a lot of that but we still have work to do!
One of those areas was opening up the document format used by Office into an open standard for interoperability - and interoperability is a good thing! To do that the world must get behind it to support Open XML becoming an ISO standard - and in that you have a voice. Australia's turn is now!
Theres three things you can do!
1. Send a letter of support to the local standards body, Standards Australia. Send it to:
Attention: Alistair Tegart
JTC-1 representative,
Standards Australia
GPO Box 476
SYDNEY NSW 2001
Or....
2. Provide us with a 2-4 sentence statement of support for this standard that can be posted publicly. Blog it and post comments/email to my blog about it (though make sure we can trackback to your blog)
Or...
3. Register your support at https://www.openxmlcommunity.org/
You can make a difference in opening up the document standards!