In all my years working as a journalist, I've never seen any technology company spin information the way Microsoft did today. The press release on OOXML ratification is a blueprint for spinning semantics, and the stringing together of truths and half-truths to seemingly make the outcome of one event something else altogether.

Some truths, benchmarks and formal complaints about Vista 7 and the lies surrounding it

The average user probably hasn't even heard of Open Document Format (ODF) or Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML). But to factions in the free software community, these formats for common office files such as text documents and spreadsheets are the poles on which a violent controversy centers.

Yesterday we wrote about ugly denials by Microsoft and even ISO — denials that shortly afterwards turned out to be bald-faced lies. It new reports are correct, this appears to have also been the case elsewhere, further away from the sight of the western world.

Crimes aside, the obvious technical pitfalls of OOXML are made more apparent, whereas ODF proves to be future-proof because of its reuse of existing standards

OOXML scandals in France revisited; Microsoft blasted in Denmark over OOXML lies, reveals the Danish press

Amid the fight against open standards, ODF 1.2 is coming and Microsoft is accused of “lying” about OOXML

Criminal investigation in Portugal to involve a company behind OOXML stuffing and Windows laptops scheme

Microsoft’s position is hardening as the ISO vote on OOXML (DIS 29500) in Geneva approaches at the end of this month. We know more clearly now how Microsoft and its proxy group, ECMA, will position Microsoft’s OOXML specification in advance of the vote. In short, Microsoft is betting that its influence with National Bodies will allow it to push through a specification which elevates its own interests over that of truly competitive, open international standards. In the end, it will be Microsoft’s own inflexibility that will be its undoing, and that undoing means knocking the OOXML out of approval for ISO status.