PSA Court bans sale of Word; Microsoft has fix ready

[techs]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091222/ap_on_hi_te/us_microsoft_patent

Court bans sale of Word; Microsoft has fix ready

SEATTLE – A federal appeals court ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent, upholding the judgment of a lower court.

But people looking to buy Word or Microsoft's Office package in the U.S. won't have to go without the software. Microsoft said Tuesday it expects that new versions of the product, with the computer code in question removed, will be ready for sale when the injunction begins on Jan. 11.

 

[shortylickens]

Deja Vu?

 

[mb]

And tomorrow the sun will rise.

 

[silverpig]

Pretty nice payday for that one company though...

 

[OverVolt]

What was the feature?

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

What was the feature?

It had to do with the type of XML used in DocX files. The patent is broad and overbearing and the ruling is bullshit.

 

[guyver01]

SEATTLE – A federal appeals court ordered Microsoft Corp. to stop selling its Word program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent, upholding the judgment of a lower court.

Pretty nice payday for that one company though...

Microsoft Revenue $ 58.437 billion (2009)

so.. lesse... that works out to ... what? 1/20th of their revenue in 2009? a drop in the bucket.

 

[techs]

Has any other company in modern times acted so illegally so many times?
It's absolutely amazing that they haven't been prosecuted under RICO.

 

[guyver01]

It's absolutely amazing that they haven't been prosecuted under RICO.

They were.. once.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20612

Originally filed by one consumer in northern California, the lawsuit claims the companies' joint venture violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is usually used in organized crime cases. Successful RICO claims provide for triple damage awards in civil cases.

In a friend-of-the-court filing on behalf of the companies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the filing of civil cases invoking RICO is out of control and urged the Supreme Court to hear the case as a way to determine whether the use RICO should be reined in.
Under the joint venture, Microsoft invested $200 million in Best Buy in April 2000, and agreed to promote the company's online store through its Internet access service, MSN. In turn, Best Buy agreed to promote MSN in its stores.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Has any other company in modern times acted so illegally so many times?
It's absolutely amazing that they haven't been prosecuted under RICO.

Boofuckinghoo. Microsoft has buckets and buckets of money because they sell a good freakin product. The ruling is BS, and all of the browser and media player shit in Europe is BS too. I don't expect IE, Firefox, and Chrome if I buy a Mac or an iPhone, I expect Safari. RealPlayer and RealNetworks died because they sucked ass, not because of Microsoft. Am I missing anything? Oh yeah, OJ did it.

 

[techs]

If an individual engaged in crime after crime like Microsoft they would be sent away for life.

Bill Gates needs to go to to one of those prisons where dropping the soap results in a BSOD.

 

[guyver01]

If an individual engaged in crime after crime like Microsoft they would be sent away for life.

Bill Gates needs to go to to one of those prisons where dropping the soap results in a BSOD.

So.. tell me... what did Bill Gates ever do to you?

You seem to have a personal hardon for him.

 

[Zebo]

They should have to stop selling it with that ribbon crap.

 

[tokie]

It had to do with the type of XML used in DocX files. The patent is broad and overbearing and the ruling is bullshit.

No, Microsoft just got lazy and ripped off some code from a no-name developer.

I detest the current patent system probably more than anyone, but in this case i4i was in the right and Microsoft in the wrong. They should have had to pay up a lot more...

 

[lxskllr]

Bill Gates needs to go to to one of those prisons where dropping the soap results in a BSOD.

Yea, huge philanthropists eat shit. They should be taken out back and quietly shot....

 

[dwell]

Boofuckinghoo. Microsoft has buckets and buckets of money because they sell a good freakin product.

Which one is that? The overpriced office suite, the craptacular Vista OS that's purportedly great now that they changed the name to Windows 7, the terrible mobile offerings, defective game console, blanket ripoff of Google of a search engine, etc?

 

[destrekor]

Microsoft Revenue $ 58.437 billion (2009)

so.. lesse... that works out to ... what? 1/20th of their revenue in 2009? a drop in the bucket.

1/20th would hardly be a drop in the bucket
however...
1/200th of their revenue is surely like paying the rapping bum to just shut the hell up already. It's a good thing it's actually the latter.

 

[dwell]

No, Microsoft just got lazy and ripped off some code from a no-name developer.

Not the first time... this year.

http://community.winsupersite.com/b...-steal-open-source-code-for-usb-dvd-tool.aspx

 

[OutHouse]

Which one is that? The overpriced office suite, the craptacular Vista OS that's purportedly great now that they changed the name to Windows 7, the terrible mobile offerings, defective game console, blanket ripoff of Google of a search engine, etc?

XP, Vista, win7 and the server software are rock solid, if you deny that you are a retard.

 

[destrekor]

Which one is that? The overpriced office suite, the craptacular Vista OS that's purportedly great now that they changed the name to Windows 7, the terrible mobile offerings, defective game console, blanket ripoff of Google of a search engine, etc?

lol what?

wanna follow the anti-sheep sheep any more with that query?

Windows Vista was a damn great product, very stable, and quite bulletproof in comparison to previous Windows versions, especially great for being a brand new kernel. The initial problems were due to incompatible drivers, and when even just one piece of hardware has a bad driver the whole OS can become unstable or lose it's speed potential.
Jump off the anti-Vista bandwagon already, I'm a power user and used Vista for it's entire product lifetime, waited a few months as usual to avoid the early driver issues. When I jumped in, I had problems with Creative's drivers, but other than that, my system was far more stable than any of my various XP installs had ever been.
Microsoft is hardly re-branding their previous OS versions for the future, something it's major competitor enjoys doing. They've been introducing a new OS what, every other year, with barely any new features? How much has the kernel even changed?
Windows 7 has a new kernel version compared to Vista, and improves the core system stacks a little more in comparison to Vista. So much so that just about every report shows it's the fastest Windows OS out there, on every occasion XP beat Vista, 7 now beats them all. And 7 is faster in areas where Vista beat out XP. Don't always need to include crazy new features, if the core of the product alone justifies the progress.

Microsoft Office could be cheaper, definitely agreed.
Windows Mobile? lol definitely agree. Though I expect WinMo 7 to be a worthy successor that hopefully can help everyone forget the WinMo 6.x shenanigans.

Console hardware issues?
Happens when you aren't a hardware company and produce a complicated product. Microsoft does not need to be in the console arena alone. They need to tag team with a big name and produce the software experience.

Bing? Well... why not? Google is making boatloads from ad revenue, and the best company motto has always been copy the most successful offerings of your competitors. I see no harm, and Bing has some nice "hey look at me" features. I won't abandon Google, however, because I use just about everything Google at this point. And that translates amazingly to my mobile experience (love my Droid).

 

[Genx87]

XP and the server software are rock solid, if you deny that you are a retard.

So is Vista and Win7.

 

[mb]

Which one is that? The overpriced office suite, the craptacular Vista OS that's purportedly great now that they changed the name to Windows 7, the terrible mobile offerings, defective game console, blanket ripoff of Google of a search engine, etc?

Wow. Try thinking for yourself instead of believing all the things the Apple/Linux fanboys say.

 

[OutHouse]

So is Vista and Win7.

true, i have had vista on my laptop for 2 years now and have had ZERO issues. i need to move to win7 but have not been in the mood to rebuild and reinstall.

 

[tokie]

lol what?

wanna follow the anti-sheep sheep any more with that query?

Windows Vista was a damn great product, very stable, and quite bulletproof in comparison to previous Windows versions, especially great for being a brand new kernel.

Microsoft Office could be cheaper, definitely agreed.
Windows Mobile? lol definitely agree. Though I expect WinMo 7 to be a worthy successor that hopefully can help everyone forget the WinMo 6.x shenanigans.

Console hardware issues?
Happens when you aren't a hardware company and produce a complicated product. Microsoft does not need to be in the console arena alone. They need to tag team with a big name and produce the software experience.

Bing? Well... why not? Google is making boatloads from ad revenue, and the best company motto has always been copy the most successful offerings of your competitors. I see no harm, and Bing has some nice "hey look at me" features. I won't abandon Google, however, because I use just about everything Google at this point. And that translates amazingly to my mobile experience (love my Droid).

Windows Vista sucked balls. I had a top of the line computer at the time it came out and it still ran slow. Only after tweaking indexing etc did it run good. The UI design for Windows generally isn't good, since Microsoft's design team thinks good looks = gradients + curved lines.

Microsoft Office is acceptable in terms of features and use, but the lack of multiplatform is a shame. Instead of trying to maximize possible clients across different platforms (Linux, Mac) like any other developer, they restrict themselves to Windows to support their own monopoly. Note: I know Mac has MS office, but it is stripped-down and slow.

Windows Mobile sucks, enough said.

Don't care about Consoles, although this is an area where they are somewhat competitive in an actual competitive market.

Basically, Microsoft is a company obsessed with trying to strong-arm end-users into using its products for everything. They reduce innovation in the software industry through monopolization.

 

[dwell]

Wow. Try thinking for yourself instead of believing all the things the Apple/Linux fanboys say.

I've used Microsoft software since DOS 5.0 right up to Win 7. Wrote a lot of code for Microsoft operating systems over the years in everything from DOS assembler, C++, MFC, Win32, .NET. Worked *with* Microsoft of more than one project, etc. At the end of the day, they just don't make good products when compared to their competitors (Apple, Google, OSS, etc). Your opinion may differ. As for me, sitting around for 20+ years waiting for them to get their act together, well, I'm no longer interested.