Microsoft Corp. has lost a key vote in its quest to develop an alternative to the Open Document Format standard, backed by the open-source community.

The executive committee of the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) fell one vote shy of the nine required to approve Microsoft’s Open XML standard. It voted 8 to 7 in favor of approval with one abstention, the group announced last week.

The vote is a setback in a long-running battle between Microsoft and those who are seeking to dislodge Microsoft’s monopoly hold on the desktop with internationally approved standards for office documents. The battle has pitted Microsoft against open-source backers such as Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM Corp., whose rival Open Document Format for XML (ODF) has gained some support among government users.

Weary international passengers were stuck at Los Angeles International Airport for several hours, unable to set foot in the United States after a computer failure prevented customs officials from screening arrivals.

About 11,500 international passengers, both Americans and foreigners, sat in four airport terminals and in 60 planes starting about 2 p.m. on Saturday, when the computer system broke down, said Los Angeles World Airports spokesman Paul Haney.

The system contains names of arriving passengers and law enforcement data about them, including arrest warrants, said Mike Fleming, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman.

“That system allows our officers to make decisions on who we can allow to enter the United States,” Fleming said. “You just don’t know by looking at them.”

The computers were fully restored at 11:45 p.m., and the last of backlogged passengers were expected to be cleared by early Sunday, Haney said.

However, the system was functioning at reduced capacity, and officials did not know how long it would take to clear the huge backlog.

“Galactic Suite”, the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.