The adoption of an international standard "ISO IEC 29500: Office Open XML file format" for the local information technology sector will have to wait a bit longer as the Standards Association of Zimbabwe opted to abstain in a recent electronic ballot. The country abstained because of a lack of consensus within the local IT industry. A total of 32 participating member countries cast their vote and of these 24 or 75 percent voted in favour of the standard. Eight African countries, namely Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Zimbabwe voted. Of the African countries only Kenya and South Africa are participating members and so their votes were weighted in the final results. Kenya submitted an abstention, whilst South Africa voted against the standard.