Ecma's general assembly voted 20-1 to approve Open XML as a standard, with IBM the lone holdout. The Geneva-based group now plans to submit the Microsoft format on a fast-track basis to the larger ISO standards organization, which officially published an ODF standard on Nov. 30.

In advance of Ecma's vote, Novell Inc. said on Monday that it would add Open XML support to its version of OpenOffice. Corel Corp. made a similar announcement last week, saying it would fully support both ODF and OpenXML in its WordPerfect software after leaning toward ODF before.

Neither IBM nor Sun Microsystems Inc. would comment on whether they plan to adopt Open XML in their desktop suites. IBM's Workplace and Sun's StarOffice use ODF as a default but also support Microsoft's older Office formats.