http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/India_to_vote_against_Microsofts_OXML/articleshow/2885776.cms

Great to see that the politics did not fly. Go academia!

http://osindia.blogspot.com/2008/03/steve-ballmer-was-in-india.html

One of my friends informed me that he saw Steve Ballmer and Microsoft India Chairman, Ravi Venkatesan on the Jet Airways, 9W811 flight from Delhi to Bangalore on 13th March 2008. My friend was on the same flight which was scheduled to leave at 5.50PM but finally took off at 6.10PM. Apparently, he was the last person to get into the flight and the first to deplane. Interestingly, that was the day when BIS met to discuss OOXML. For those who have been following this issue, India's final vote on the subject will be on 20th May 2008. Talk about timing!

The "Yes" votes came from industry body NASSCOM, Microsoft itself and Indian software giants Infosys, TCS and Wipro.

Infosys is a Microsoft Business Partner too, see here.

Wipro is also a partner: "Wipro – Microsoft : A strategic relationship"

TCS is also a partner: Microsoft and Tata Consultancy Services to Deliver Connected Services Framework to Telecommunications Providers

Nasscom is also doing some Microsoft certifications.

Microsoft is happy to have their support:

While we are disappointed with the decision of the BIS LITD 15 committee, we are very encouraged by the support of IT industry players like NASSCOM, TCS, Wipro and Infosys who voted in favor of Open XML becoming an ISO standard.

Maybe those companies will receive some "market incentives" for their vote for OOXML, as it happened in Sweden?

There were 19 present, 3 absent in the meeting:

5 voted 'Yes'
1 Abstained
13 voted 'No'

All the government members and academic institutions voted 'No'.