The big news today is that Microsoft is releasing Office formats as a standard. The headline doesn't necessarily match the reality however.

Microsoft are planning on releasing the standard for Office 12 documents, which will be based on XML technology, as a standard approved by the ISO. But are the ISO really a better alternative for releasing this information, than simply publishing the information themselves, online, for everybody to look at?

Why does a document standard need ISO approval?

Because doing so would make it much more likely to appeal to governments are large corporations which like to use standards to ensure interoperability.