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I DON'T MIND a little cynicism - it's a natural and only mildly toxic byproduct of paying attention. So last week, when Microsoft's Office Open XML file format was rejected as an international standard, I wasn't bothered that Microsoft said it was "extremely delighted" by the result.
Some observers called that phrase "spin." Me, I trust it was just ordinary Microsoft cynicism.
Or is it optimism? Sure, Microsoft's proposed standard was rejected, which means some organizations - especially governments - won't want to use OOXML as their document standard.
But OOXML didn't lose by a lot, right? And in February, Microsoft will get one final chance to fix up the problems and get OOXML OK'd. And then we can all happily use it, because it will be a formal international standard - right?
Hold that thought.
Now consider this from Brian Jones, a Microsoft manager who has worked on OOXML for six years. In July, Jones was asked...