Microsoft Word Legal Troubles

I must have gone way too deep into the ITIL over the last few weeks...because this is the first that I've heard of this:

link wrote:

If Microsoft can't re-engineer Word before October 10, and if the courts don't grant the company a stay of the ruling, the fallout would likely be catastrophic not just for Microsoft but throughout the computer industry. Retailers would be forced to remove packaged copies of Word (and Office) from shelves, and PC makers would have to remove Word from any preinstalled bundles that come with new computers. With Windows 7 rolling out just days after that deadline, the potential mess that could be generated is almost unfathomable.

Microsoft asks judge to keep Word on the market : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

MS

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Comments

seraphus

Catastrophic is a bit of an overstatement...

Google Watch - Google vs. Microsoft - Microsoft Loss of Word Could Be Google's Gain

To be clear, the injunction wouldn't prevent existing users of Word from using the software they already license from Microsoft.

Solaris_UNIX

Right now might be a good time to familiarize yourself with OpenOffice.

Don't knock it until you've tried the most recent version. Free download below:

OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

It's free to modify the source code, recompile and redistribute if you want to make any changes. You can also buy full 24 hour corporate support from Sun Microsystems if you want to. Sun is the company that provides the software and hardware that powers linkedin.com, wikipedia.org and e-bay.com as well as a majority (I think 8 or 9 out of the 12) root level DNS servers that handle all DNS queries on the internet, and they also help to make a lot of phone companies and much of the military / defense infrastructure work the way it's supposed to. They make reliable stuff

IBM (who provides the computational infrastructure behind the international banking system) and Novell also contribute code and support to OpenOffice. I think IBM's version is called "Lotus Symphony", and it's probably not as good as OpenOffice.org IMO because it has less community input than OOo did.

Solaris_UNIX

seraphus wrote: »

Catastrophic is a bit of an overstatement...

Google Watch - Google vs. Microsoft - Microsoft Loss of Word Could Be Google's Gain

I'm sorry but those IT Journalists who think that Google Docs can replace Microsoft Office are absolutely clueless when it comes to IT security. Twitter is a good example of a large corporation that put all of their secret internal financial documents on Google docs, and all their confidential documents got hacked and posted up on the internet for the whole world to see, so much for "Google security" (see link from Ted Dziuba below):

Twitter docs hack exploits stupidity vuln ? The Register

Could you imagine how devastating that would be if it was a bank or a hospital that had all their customer's private information hacked and revealed on the internet like that.

Google docs- ok for personal use if you don't mind the risk to your own privacy and personal information, but for corporate use, just say no! It's very dangerous having your company's confidential information stored in an unencrypted state on some other company's server that you have no control over.

Ashenwelt

Ok, a few things. First off, Google Docs would be an absolute disaster. You cannot use it in many businesses. Not shouldn't, legally CAN'T. Which brings us to OpenOffice.org. Ok, sorry, but I honestly think that is absolutly a peice of junk. Could it be a contender? In several years, yes.

I could see this as a big in for Wordperfect. That is a solid product that has been in use for decades. It is still the pick of the legal community as well.

But here is the thing: the suit may just be starting with MS. I bet they are going to move on from there. Heck, ODF is already under the gun in many peoples minds. Or, how about this one, could this work the same way on half the graphics programs out there? Why yes, it might.

Gah. This is inane. And the previous art is also at insane levels. I hate junk patents.

astorrs

As soon as the appeals court gets a hold of it they'll reject it as another bogus patent claim; and sure enough this one was ONCE AGAIN filed in the Eastern District of Texas, I think half the judges there are on the payrolls of these patent acquisition companies. Why the heck is a Canadian company allowed to sue a Washington state based company in Texas - absolute rubbish.

msteinhilber

Solaris_UNIX wrote: »

Could you imagine how devastating that would be if it was a bank or a hospital that had all their customer's private information hacked and revealed on the internet like that.

Can't imagine that at all as it wouldn't be even a possibility since many organizations (banks and hospitals especially) fall under various compliance acts such as HIPPA, SarbOx, etc.

MS will get past this no problems at all, OpenOffice will likely not benefit at all. As far as OpenOffice really doing well if MS was somehow adversely affected by this, I can't see it happening. I offer OpenOffice as an alternative for our real estate agents that don't want to shell out money for MS Office. Most of the time they use OpenOffice for a couple weeks or so and then I have them on the phone and I'm placing an order for them for MS Office.

eMeS

astorrs wrote: »

As soon as the appeals court gets a hold of it they'll reject it as another bogus patent claim; and sure enough this one was ONCE AGAIN filed in the Eastern District of Texas, I think half the judges there are on the payrolls of these patent acquisition companies. Why the heck is a Canadian company allowed to sue a Washington state based company in Texas - absolute rubbish.

My understanding is that it is a Federal case, that happened to be heard by the District Court in Texas. The Federal courts have some method of splitting their cases/workload, about which I am wholly unqualified to talk.

Thus it has nothing to do with Texas or Texas courts per se. If it did we would have already invaded Canada.

MS

astorrs

eMeS wrote: »

My understanding is that it is a Federal case, that happened to be heard by the District Court in Texas. The Federal courts have some method of splitting their cases/workload, about which I am wholly unqualified to talk.

Thus it has nothing to do with Texas or Texas courts per se. If it did we would have already invaded Canada.

It's specifically the East District of TX I'm whining about - and there's nothing random about where it was held - and I'm not alone in thinking that:

Court Marshall High-stakes patent lawsuits surge in small East Texas town | Texans for Lawsuit Reform

Why East Texas Judges Just Gave Patent Holders Incentives To Sue More Companies... | Techdirt

The Indiana Law Blog: Courts - "Patent lawyers flock to East Texas court for its expertise and 'rocket docket' "

eMeS

astorrs wrote: »

It's specifically the East District of TX I'm whining about - and there's nothing random about where it was held - and I'm not alone in thinking that:

Court Marshall High-stakes patent lawsuits surge in small East Texas town | Texans for Lawsuit Reform

Why East Texas Judges Just Gave Patent Holders Incentives To Sue More Companies... | Techdirt

The Indiana Law Blog: Courts - "Patent lawyers flock to East Texas court for its expertise and 'rocket docket' "

Interesting...I wasn't aware of any of that. Now I know where to go to sue you all for infringement of my patent on "vowels", specifically the letters a and e.

I wonder when this guy will be impeached?

MS

WilliamK99

astorrs wrote: »

It's specifically the East District of TX I'm whining about - and there's nothing random about where it was held - and I'm not alone in thinking that:

Court Marshall High-stakes patent lawsuits surge in small East Texas town | Texans for Lawsuit Reform

Why East Texas Judges Just Gave Patent Holders Incentives To Sue More Companies... | Techdirt

The Indiana Law Blog: Courts - "Patent lawyers flock to East Texas court for its expertise and 'rocket docket' "

That is extremely shady, there has to be some sort of accountability, such as lawyers not being able to pick their own dockets...