Did Microsoft Buy Sweden's ISO Vote on OOXML?

It seems when Sweden’s Working Group for deciding their vote on the OOXML standard being adopted met there were a large number of previously unseen attendees.  The Swedish Standards Institute appears to be fine with people showing up and voting despite not being party to the talks leading up to the vote as long as you pay dues (~$2500US).

I don’t normally like to don my tinfoil hat but of the twenty three last minute attendees it looks like 18 are Microsoft certified partners of some level.  People following the working group were convinced that it was going to be a landslide for Sweden to submit a “no” vote on OOXML.  However, once the votes were tallied it was 25 for, 6 against and 3 abstaining.  Two people are known to have left the meeting in protest, including IBM’s representative.

I certainly hope that the appearance of impropriety stops there: as an appearance.  Something like this could be construed as anti-competitive, and Microsoft has enough issues with that perception already.

http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14868/1/