Microsoft is or Microsoft are?

I've noticed that a lot of sales/marketing material (including some by the company I work for, which is what has prompted me to write this) tends to say things like:

"At WhateverCompany we like to produce perfect products. WhateverCompany are committed to perfection and we accept nothing less. Every time WhateverCompany sell a product we hand-check it at least 240 times before shipping it to you."

The problem here is the way the company is treated as a plural: "WhateverCompany are" rather than "WhateverCompany is", and "WhateverCompany sell" rather than "WhateverCompany sells". The thing that prompts people to do this is the feeling that they shouldn't mix a reference to the company as a singular entity in the same sentence as a reference to "we". However, I don't have a problem with this. If you need to say "we" then, obviously, you're referring to yourself and others (plural) who work for the company (singular). So the above should be:

"At WhateverCompany we like to produce perfect products. WhateverCompany is committed to perfection and we accept nothing less. Every time WhateverCompany sells a product we hand-check it at least 240 times before shipping it to you."

There's an interesting discussion about this at Channel 9:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=205755