By If you need a copy of the word processing program I suggest you get to a retail store before January 11th.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a $290 million judgment against Microsoft Corp. and issued an injunction that will prevent the sale of its popular Word software.
The court injunction is set to go into effect Jan. 11. Microsoft has said such a bar would prohibit the sale of all currently available versions of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office.
Microsoft had appealed a Texas jury verdict in favor of i4i Inc., a Toronto company. The jury found recent versions of Microsoft Word infringed on a software patent.
Microsoft has said that it and the public will both suffer if Word goes off the market while the company devises a workaround.- Associated Press
Anyone who bought a copy of Word before the injunction goes into effect may still use the program. The use of bootleg copies of Microsoft programs can be hazardous. The son-in-law of my wife’s co-worker installed such software and the computer it was only eventually became junk.
11:34 pm on December 22nd, 2009 1
This could be a cleverly disguised scheme to sell Office 2010.
3:23 am on December 23rd, 2009 2
Nobody should buy Microsoft Office.
After Microsoft screwed Sun by hijacking Java, Sun released OpenOffice.
OpenOffice is a free, open-source clone of Office which not only copies its look and feel but also contains some additional features.
As it is available in Korea, both our American and Korean offices now use it and we are very happy. We also saved a LOT of money.
I am tired of Windows and other Microsoft software doing what Bill Gates, his corporate partners and the government wants it to do at the expense of stability and performance. For this reason, I push OpenOffice every chance I get.
Google "open office" and check it out for yourself.
5:45 am on December 23rd, 2009 3
The use of bootleg copies of Microsoft programs can be hazardous. The son-in-law of my wife’s co-worker installed such software and the computer it was only eventually became junk.
I don't think that has anything to do with being bootleg. I have a legitimately purchased copy of MS Office for Mac, and that's exactly what happens with it.
The problem with Microsoft is that it cares more about dominance than quality. It will foist a crappy product on the public because hitting a deadline is more important than getting it done right.
Back in the day, when there were completely separate versions of MS Word for Mac and PC, the Mac version was a beautiful piece of software. It was highly functional and it worked so smoothly. Then MS inexplicably scrapped all that and made a Macinized version of the PC version, and it was crap. It literally took fifteen minutes to load up. They had to send out brand-new versions to all the people who'd bought that crappy version.
Even now they have weird problems that other Mac problems don't. If I keep Windows open, it slowly starts eating my remaining disk space, forcing me to get it back only by restarting the computer. Weird.
7:37 am on December 23rd, 2009 4
Let MS burn.
12:08 pm on December 23rd, 2009 5
Meh MS will find a way to get around this, either by modifying MS Office or just straight out buying the company involved.
I'm wondering which part their saying is violating which patent.
As the reason everyone use's MS Office, well its become a standard now. Regardless of someones personal feelings many places in the world went over to MS Office back in the 90's and they've just kept the ball rolling since then. Many office users are familiar with the interface and don't want to be retrained to use a different production suite.
Open Office is getting there, its not quite a match for many of the functions of MS Office 2007. And Open Office has almost no enterprise capabilities built it, which is a huge negative for large corporations that deal with the thousands of clients.
12:10 pm on December 23rd, 2009 6
Yup,
Open Office is a great piece of software, free or not. It's more than enough for most users.
3:57 pm on December 23rd, 2009 7
Does anyone else hate M$ Office 2007 as much as I do. They changed the GUI so much I have trouble finding anything (The Vista Dilemma). Hogwash. The old interface was intuitive and users were accustomed to it. Why trifle with success?
1:17 am on December 24th, 2009 8
Yeah everyone where I work has been complaining about Office 2007 as well. Ever since the Vista upgrade Outlook has been running much slower as well.
2:19 am on December 24th, 2009 9
The last 2 comments contain contradictory statements that are both true.
"Many office users are familiar with the interface and don’t want to be retrained to use a different production suite."
"They changed the GUI so much I have trouble finding anything."
Companies believe they have to stick to MS Word because they believe the former is true. But in reality, the later is more often true.
How many people really understand or need more than a tenth of the 'features' in office ?productivity? software. Many companies invest millions of dollars to send employees to Microsoft Office training classes. It's an expense on top of the expense of buying and occasionally having to upgrade those products.
And, when you upgrade, do you really get productivity improvement? I can't count the number of hours I wasted after receiving an upgrade. The geniuses at Microsoft tend to believe they know what is best for you more than you do. So, hours are spent trying to figure out how to turn off the annoying little animated character that popped up any time you hit the F1 key to get help. More hours are spent trying to turn off all the auto-corrections you don't intend or want.
Most people with a heavy workload and time constraints may have taken years to get their Word, PowerPoint and Excel set up just the way they want it. They don't look forward to upgrades. They dread them.
Over time you start to figure out the deceptions in Microsoft's marketing myths. Microsoft doesn't own exclusive rights to decide standards. They are also not the only ones using propriety formats to lock in a customers base.
You learn that, especially when you work overseas. Go to many Korean government or corporate websites and you find out that the documents they offer you to download are in something called Hangul Word Processor format. Something that is not used anywhere outside of Korea. Neither MS Word nor OpenOffice will read it. A free HWP reader can be found, but it does a terrible job of displaying the format and fonts. I believe the only reason the company that makes that software is still in business is due to a concerted effort of the Korean government to buy their product.
Over the past year, I have been making a dedicated effort to wean myself off MS Office and move completely to OpenOffice. OpenOffice is fine for over 90% of what I do. But I am kind of a PowerPoint power-user and OpenOffice Impress will bog down on my graphics and custom animation intense presentations. So I still need PowerPoint.
I use MS Office XP (2003) and I have no interest or need to upgrade to whatever MS is pushing now. However, I won't object to it if it's given to me pre-installed on a new computer
.
BTW. I can't confirm what technology MS was proven to have stolen, but I took a look at the offended company, i4i. They produced and extension to Word that built XML documents. XML is another 'feature' that most user won't need or care about.
1:25 am on January 4th, 2010 10
I can't put my fiinger on it, but I'm thinking that might not be the box that Microsoft uses, unless it is for the ebonics version.