From a Digistan press release:
Microsoft started a highly controversial international "fast-track" standardization process for their OOXML format early in 2007. At a "ballot resolution meeting" in Geneva in February 2008, delegates from 81 countries must sort through the thousands of technical comments made during the previous ballot, in September. The final vote on the format is due at the end of March 2008.
The Digistan study says, "Just before the ballot the following countries applied for p-membership: Malta, Venezuela, Pakistan, Poland, Egypt, Lebanon, New Zealand, South Africa, Ecuador, Jamaica and Uruguay, 8 of which voted for approval." P-members are normally long-term participants in the standards process.
By comparing the per-capita GPD of those countries that voted "YES" against those that voted "NO" in September, the authors of the report showed a difference of almost USD10,000 per capita. The report explains, "Countries with lower GDP per capita usually have weaker institutions representing its citizens and weaker economies that depend more strongly on foreign multinationals. For instance, the correlation between the Corruption Perceptions Index from Transparency International and the GDP per capita is of 0.8322."
Digistan founder Pieter Hintjens concludes, "recently approved standards like ISO 26300 (Open Document Format) and ISO 32000 (Portable Document Format) show a near 100% approval rate. We hope our study helps ISO to acknowledge and deal with the full implications of the anomalies of the OOXML ballot."
The study with all appendices is available in PDF format.