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It is becoming increasingly clear that, while the U.S. Justice Department has been convinced by the Microsoft lobby to go easy on the software giant, the rest of the world is not going to fall into step behind them. And even though the adoption of document standards may seem like an odd place to take a stand against Microsoft, it is becoming increasingly common to do so.

India and Brazil have joined with South Africa in filing formal protests against the adoption of Microsoft's OOXML as an international document standard. This, of course, comes on the heels of the European Commission's lack of acceptance of Microsoft's announcement that they will also support actual open standards in documents. Microsoft has sung this tune so often that very few people are willing to take their word for it. They have too often been all hat and no cattle.

Microsoft's credibility in such matter is being questioned more and more often by more and more parties. It seems quite common, in fact, to simply believe that Microsoft rarely speaks with any candor on these matters, or for that matter, any matter. Once a company is perceived as never being honest with its clients or the press, one has to wonder how long they can last in the marketplace. Or is this just the way of modern business?