Let's see Microsoft spin this one. The vendor failed to get the requisite number of votes for its proposed document format, Open XML, from participating ISO members.

eWEEK editor Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols called the vote this morning: Microsoft loses.
ISO, based in Geneva, made it official a few hours later. The draft "has not achieved the required number of votes for approval."

But Microsoft's press release this morning sounded like a victory lap, calling the vote a "milestone for the widespread adoption of the Open XML formats around the world."

Millstone is more like it. Microsoft is married to Open XML, the basis for Office 2007, which is arguably the most important product in Microsoft's desktop strategy. If it fails to have Open XML approved as a standard, it risks seeing its hegemony over desktops eroded, at least in the public sector.

Microsoft was able to make it sound like it won the vote by comingling votes from participating members with votes from countries with observer status only. It also neglected to mention that it received altogether too many negative votes. The spin is probably an effort to develop something like a sense of inevitability for its document format; it has made it clear that it will continue fighting to the bitter end. But now that ISO has made the setback official, the vendor can no longer claim its failure as a victory. Or can it?