Microsoft Word allowed to stay on sale... for now
By Nilay Patel 
posted September 4th 2009 12:17AM
posted September 4th 2009 12:17AM
Just as we predicted, Microsoft's request to have that ban on sales of Word put on hold pending appeal of i4i's XML patent victory has been granted. That means IT managers and excitable first-year college students can continue to happily throw down cash for the world's most popular word processor, while the rest of us twiddle our thumbs waiting for either proceedings to resume on September 23 or Stevey Ballms to write the big check and make this whole case disappear forever.
does anyone really think there is a chance that Microsoft Word is going to disappear?
No one thinks that, the article titles have to be interesting and eye catching.
Like it or not more and more people are moving to Open Office Suite. And it is free!
So to answer your question, yes and it will eventually. Why would people want to
pay when it is freely available.
i don't see how Open Office is relevant to this. this is about Microsoft Word potentially not being sold due to legal issues. not because people are switching to Open Office.
btw i am well aware of Open Office so don't come in here like a figgin Open Source Jehovah's Witness. i use what i use now leave me alone.
My point is Word will disappear eventually not because of legal issues
but because of Open Office Suite. Charging outrageous amount of
money for Word is over.
Changes are coming changes are near...
We can only hope. Maybe then world will use a word processor that doesn't turn a 5kB simple text file into a 50MB one, or one that doesn't take 30 seconds to open a 500kB file, or one that doesn't fight you tooth and nail when trying to place a photo in a particular spot on page, or one that doesn't inexplicably change your font when backspace over a blank space, or one that lets you place table lines where you want, or....., or....., or.............man do I hate Word, almost ANY thing else is better.
Open office is a slow piece of ****. I've tried using it a few times, and I didn't like the experience.
Torrented Office, happy person.
(Bring on the low rank)
re: lens42
seriously, which word processor are you talking about? If it's microsoft word I feel like you haters should be ignored, but lets answer your points, shall we, just to highlight what a cock you are.
1) word 2007 opens in about 1-2 seconds here, and i'm using a crappy 2-3 year old cheap business pc.
2) a 44kb plain text log file from a backup job saves down as a 22kb docx file.
3) double click anywhere in your document that you want to place an image, and paste the image in.
4) get a life.
Word is bundled with most decent OEM PCs these days so not a great extra cost.
Open Office is OK but lacks Office's feature set.
No, but wouldn't that be a glorious day?
Open Office will only take over if one of two things happen:
1. Office stops being sold, for legal reasons, or when MS retires the product (unlikely), or what have you
or
2. Open Office stops being a steaming pile (also unlikely)
And nobody is the least surprised.
yeah I know, How DARE engadget spell "cheque" as "check" How DARE THEY!
the legal documents for this case were probably written using microsoft word
lol
That comment just made my day.
Whew, for a minute there I didn't think MS was going to be able to pay everybody off to make this go away....
This is the same as the Download Squad headline :O
The headline over there was "Microsoft gets to keep selling Word... for now." I was surprised engadget didn't link to them to keep the clicks in the family and mention the Seattle Pi blog in the actual post.
I wish patent trolls were illegal.
They're not trolls at all. They had a product patented fair and square well before Microsoft came to them, in their company, to learn how it worked when the government was using their product to manage documents...
Then Microsoft copied the functionality in the next version of Office and told all i4i's customers how to not need i4i's product anymore (i.e. they "sold" the patented process). So much for developers,developers, developers... way to take one for the team! They tried very shallowly to cover up the copying and they lost.
This isn't somebody that had "sort of technology" and waited out the big settlement ... Microsoft knew they had patents before Microsoft showed up, tried to squeeze them out and the courts didn't buy Microsoft's excuses. It's about as willful infringement as you can get.....Microsoft wasn't even debating the claim to squeeze them out after being their business partner, just that their product might be different enough not to infringe the patent.
Tennenbaum was fined 19+ times (being really conservative here) his income for 30 $2 songs. How about we fine Microsoft 19x it's yearly income for this infraction (payable in gold bricks please)... if it's fair for one kind of IP why not the other?? Why are the courts worried about "fairness" to a willful infringing corporation when they blast an individual so harshly?
Open office, anyone?
indeed
http://www.openoffice.org
Portable:
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/openoffice_portable
AbiWord Portable:
http://portableapps.com/apps/office/abiword_portable
Open office is good.
Is it as good as Microsoft Office? no, not yet.
*shrug* Does what I want.
..but when iWork gains ODF support, I'll probably switch. Obj-C > Java
Open office does not get even close to what I need .... I wish business users would be involved a bit more in Open office design. Ask anybody who works in finance what they think.
@etana2
If you mean compiled code is better than the Java VM, then yes, that statement is correct.
If you mean Objective-C is better than Java the language, then that statement is not correct.
I think the problem is Open Office tries to mini-mic the user experience on previous versions of Word, it does not provide the mass with a true alternative choice as proposed by open source gurus.
I mean, look at Microsoft Office suite 2010! I certainly hope the open source community come up something that will triumph commerical software in terms of user experience to make more competition in market.
Not just wasting time to log government and force them to load Linux on school and government boxes, but innovate and make the product more user friendly.
@ethana2
Objective-C is a disgusting language. Java is much better...and I'm not a huge fan of Java either. C# is the way to go! Gotta love Visual Studio 2008.
OO is enough for me at home :D
Isn't open office infringing on this joke of a patent as well? I think it does, problem is they too poor to be sued.
Is it good for everything I use it for? Yes.
Is it better than Office in certain areas? Yes.
Is it better than Office in all areas? No. But then neither is Office.
Stevey Ballms.... lol
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
Jocks find quartz glyph, vex BMW.
Use Open office for free and be happy!There is plenty of various free software on the web not even a bit second!!!At some point even faster!Use Linux, use Mandriva, Ubuntu Open Office!;) It's all free Save money and be happy!Once again I will repeat myself - Microsoft and all its products are monopoly and thrusted on/dictated even!;))) It's all true. They have money and "they" keep other guys with other OSs aside!That's what I call fuc..ed up
Quit with the advertising if people want to use Microsoft or Openoffice.org let them be its there choice for better or worst not your job to be bias and influence then.
Your punctuation and lack of spaces also render your argument invalid.
he didn't have Word to check it for him.
Everybody tell the truth did anyone expect this no sale on word was going to stick there would be so much bulls**t flying from consumers who want to purchase word, from Microsoft to the court and everybody else involved.
So the law only applies harshly when we sue people for uploading on P2P... not when a company gets inside information under NDA and patents and then stabs it's partner in the back and makes their product useless.
The whole problem is that courts think multi-billion dollar settlements are the solution.. in order to "punish" Microsoft in the same manner the P2P kids were punished you'd have to fine them 100 BILLION dollars every time one of these cases is judged against them.. and that's not "reasonable" to the courts.
Shutting Microsoft sales down is the only way to really punish them... hit their OEMS and Customers where it hurts! It's long past time that Microsoft's OEMs and Large Customers were hurt for being complicit in the monopoly abuses and incompatible file types and allowing Microsoft to push "somebody else" around as long as it wasn't them. A 6 month break from MS Word is exactly what other word processors need to generate some funds and beef up their products.
Monetary fines don't work against their disproportionally deep pockets... it's time to sit them out of the game for a bit.
They do not see that choice for it's "kept in oneself" by microsoft and apple as well;)
People DO NOT see the choice because other people like them DO NOT wanna them see those choices!!!.......
Anyways I want those small imperceptible companies/developers/open os like Linux, Ubuntu, Mandriva etc flourish and prosper and finally be real competitors on the market and replace microsoft for the best!;) No advertisments!That's my personal opinion after using all those various systems/OSs for a while and working in IT field for a bit
Take it easy guys
That will only stop happening once the open source community stops producing unrefined, feature slim, unstable shit!
That democracy and freedom NO MONOPOLY
Punctuation and grammar for the win. -_- /sarcasm
Like I said it's not about punctuation and grammar!;)
You getting away from my point/reality mr "ISKATEHARD247!!! Not even unique Mr #247
I'll gladly pay Micro$oft money to use their word processing program as long as it works. To me it is worth having the extra stability and functions that aren't available in Open Office.
I highly doubt you'll say that first comment again once you get out of high school... If you type like a monkey good luck finding a job now days. Yes this email name was back when Gmail first started and you could only pick from the account name that was invited (IE: an email account back from 7th grade).
FYI I've already graduated and got masters degree from the National University Of Kharkov Named after Karazin!;)
What about you smart aleck?:)))
They have as many features as MO does have!;) And it's free!
I would not mind to pay up to $50 for MO but not about $200!
And it's monopoly like I said! So let's give those guys a chance and support them with money to develop those "fresh" free OS, software...