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Microsoft Pulls Office From Its Own Online Store
CWmike writes "Microsoft has pulled almost every version of Office from its own online store to comply with a court order requiring it to remove custom XML technology from its popular Word software that starts on Monday. As of mid-day, the only edition available from the Microsoft Store was Office Ultimate 2007, a $670 'full-version' suite. All other Windows editions, as well as Office 2008 for Mac, were accompanied by the message: 'This product is currently unavailable while we update versions on our site. We expect it to be available soon.' Microsoft confirmed that the disappearance of Office was related to the injunction that came out of a patent infringement case the company lost in 2009. 'We've taken steps to comply with the court's ruling and we're introducing the revised software into the US market," said Michael Croan, a senior marketing manager, in an e-mail. He also downplayed the move. 'This process will be imperceptible to the vast majority of customers, who will find both trial and purchase options readily available.'"
I'm always up for a good bashing, but eh what? It was already decided in court that MS was violating the patent (which imo is stupid, btw). They were required to stop selling Word, and now they comply. Whats the news here? That MS complied to laws and judge orders?
Also, how is that "downplaying the move"? They probably worked on non-infringing Word version for long time already and are replacing it soon. In fact;
Microsoft has posted updates for both Word 2003 and Word 2007 to its download site and told customers in accompanying support documents that those updates are mandatory "only if you have been instructed to do so in a separate communication from Microsoft." The company has also committed to revamping Word 2008 for Mac and Word 2004 for Mac, even though those versions were not named in the injunction.
In the meantime, Microsoft also told potential customers that they can download the free beta of Office 2010, the next-generation suite slated for a June release.
Perfect opportunity for Open Office to gain some ground. You and I may not know the people, but there will be someone out there who needs to download Office during the week for an assignment or work task, and will be unable to buy their legitimate version online. So the person goes to google and types in "office suite" and what comes up first? OO.org
What I want to know is what will i4i do with its 300 million from Microsoft.
And will Microsoft pay-up?
You'd think that Microsoft could manage to remove the XML extensions that the judge didn't like by now. Perhaps the regression testing for Windows 98 on a 286 slowed them down?
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
... they should also have to deactivate every (legal) copy that's currently out in the wild. After all, the software industry has been telling us for years that we don't really get to buy software, just rent it. So surely it can't be legal for Microsoft to continue to rent out software that violates someone else's patent!
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm impressed that Microsoft is finally taking the security of their Office suite seriously. We've been waiting for this patch for years.
MS complied with the EU ruling, and note... immediately took full vengeance on: the USERS. $670 for an Office Cocktail to burn down your desktop. Smallchange, maybe to those driving a Veyron. I think it is finally time for those users (and their bosses) to "move on" to Open Office, even on the MS platform, and ultimately migrate to Linux desktop.
How convenient that the $670 edition should be the one that remains available.
I can only think of three explanations for this:
1. MS are quite happy to put some of the revenue from Office to paying damages, provided the revenue is from the most expensive version.
2. They're holding back on making the cheaper versions compliant intentionally to see if only having the expensive version available dramatically affects sales.
3. They're not as well organised as I'd like to believe - packaging every different edition of Office is a major undertaking which requires a lot of work.
You ackowledge your post is redunant. Good for you.
It did not need to be restated. If you wanted to simply voice your support to his thread, then you should have replied to his thread rather than starting a thread whose sole purpose was to agree with the previous thread.
Ultimately the tricky problem is who do you actually sue with open source. Technically every person on the planet owns the code and is free to use the application that the code creates. So sue the planet, you can't really sue companies providing service and support, nor companies providing manuals, not even companies that supply you with a copy of the completed application that you technically already owned before you even approached the company.
I am trying to imagine the patent cops trying to enter every place of business and residence to ensure every infringing copy is removed and, that's world wide, even if for some insane reason they actually tried, you can;t bet it would end up having the exact opposite effect and drive up popularity.
As for M$ it's just another embarrassing management debacle, more funny than interesting but definately news worthy. Perhaps M$ can distribute copies of OpenOffice.org in the interim so that they don't leave their customers in the lurch, they are even entitled to label their version as MicroSoft OpenOffice as long as they adhere to licence requirements (oddly enough it would likely have positive marketing benefits for M$).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Whats the news here? That MS complied to laws and judge orders?
Yes, that's exactly it.
And that's not meant to be a smartass comment about how often Microsoft does and doesn't do that.
All I'm trying to say is that this Microsoft/XML/Patent story is of interest to the slashdot crowd, and we would like to be informed about how the sequence of events unfold.
Getting confirmation that Microsoft complies with the law and court orders is an important event in this story---perhaps even the most crucial.
That's the reason it's on slashdot.
Your Honor, Microsoft will comply with the courts wishes, I give you my Word.... bundled with Excel and Powerpoint and....
Take Nobody's Word For It.
You need your reading glasses too, if you haven't found the spell checker in OpenOffice.org.
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I disagree. The kind of people who would use the trial version are the kind that don't have 600 bucks for the full package and no corporate backing. Those people are used to digging for bargains, and free is a good price.
AbiWord on the other hand is pretty lame compared to OpenOffic or StarOffice. I look at it every three or four years to see if it has improved, and it is a perennial disappointment.
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Do you work in an IT related field? Because I do not. And I do not know anybody (at work) that has even heard of openoffice. In fact, I do not think it would even occur to most of those people that there might even exist another "office" solution.
I know when I tell people that I don't use MS Office they are shock and almost immeditely assume that I must not view any documents at home.
Hey. Here is a radical idea. Maybe instead of telling people at work that you don't use MS Office, you should tell them about Open Office. Then you would know lots of people who have heard about Open Office!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You must be new here. Any Apple-related story draws 10x as many Apple-hating comments as it does Apple-friendly comments.
"Microsoft have done a lot of things wrong"
Like breaking the law in pretty much all major localities around the planet.
What are you? A masochist?
If you hear a chorus of disapproval maybe, just maybe, there is a frigging reason of why people feel so aggravated.
Google and Apple now have quite a dominance in the markets that will matter in the future and people are far more cool about them because they are not complete and utter unethical bastards.
Do I need to clarify the point any further?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Keep telling them otherwise. I know a dude who's loved him some Microsoft (as long as somebody would copy a disk for him) and has insulted my use of open source for the last decade. This month he loves OpenOffice.org and has been emailing me about how great it is like he's the one who discovered it. Looking into other open source programs and musing about whether Yellow Dog would revitalize his old Powerbook so I guess hell froze over. It can be amazing how slow people are to contemplate change
but that doesn't mean it will _never_ click.
I think it would probably depend more on what you actually use an office package for in your work.
I, along with my colleagues, have either a .doc, .xls or .ppt file open all day to work on. Most of us are self-employed as well - the PP got it right that many of us are indeed looking for the cheapest way to get our work done (it's not the only thing we look for, but, yeah, it's important).
There are currently two packages that I can think of that everyone I work with knows about and would consider good enough to work with: Open office and Softmaker's line of products.
A food store, like any other store, sets the price of the food it sells to the point that brings it the most profit. Rising the price will decrease, not increase, profits. So yes, it pays for any stolen items out of its own pockets, since it has no other options.
I wish people stopped perpetuating the PR-invented myth that companies are somehow impervious to fines because they can simply get more money from their customers to cover it. They can't, because if they could, they'd already be doing so. Any company blaming a price increase to fines, theft or anything like that is flat out lying.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Sounds more like an illegal monopolization tactic to me.
"We won't give you MS stuff unless you agree not to support free software."
M$ complying with the law is news.
Not really. MSFT just picks and chooses when to do so. MSFT doesn't believe in rules restricting molopolistic business practices--it has been a belief deeply ingrained within their executive team, including Gates and Ballmer. That belief extends to their resistance to conform with the spirit, if not the letter, of rulings pertaining to those practices including its attempts at tight integration of application-level programming into its OS (Internet Explorer, Media Player), lack of interoperability/closed protocols (bastardised directory services, Exchange...) and so forth. There is a sense of entitlement there--basically they worked damn hard to be industry leaders and they did it by their own hard work, and damn any government who decides how to run their business especially if it hobbles their ability to "compete" and "innovate". Post-Gates this hard-line is changing--albeit at a galcially slow pace--as MSFT tries to show a bit of goodwill in its voluntary contributions to open source. There will be no epic game-changing event (the way Apple had completely overhauled both hardware and software architectures of its flagship product line more than once, or a business strategy equivalent anyways) untill Ballmer retires...if ever.
If this event is news at all, it isn't surprising in the slightest though. MSFT might have fought hard to win its case and it might not think the patent has merit, but when it comes to IP law they very higly respect and conform to it, at least when they are caught with their hand in the patent cookie-jar. Unlike in anti-trust cases, they will only appeal for so long, and they will very willingly comply with rulings not only to the letter, but within the spirit as well (ie. the decision to pull MacOS versions even though they weren't specifically mentioned--because the ruling "probably" covers ALL versions of word). So why the different attitude? MSFT knows it is still a software-centric company and that patentability of software concepts gives them enhanced ability to restrict competition not available with copyright (where IMO software IP should be handled exclusively). No matter what MSFT says critically about the shortcomings of patent law, it wants REFORM, not elimination, of software patents.
If it was in their interest, MSFT would've thrown a billion dollars at lawyers to fight for a ruling in its favour--even if complying was cheaper, but it isn't in their interest in this case. If they slayed this dragon, they know they've set a Bilski-like legal precident exposing a vast amount of their patent library to legal challenge, perhaps even some directly pertaining to its cash-cow MS Office.
The infringing source is of course a composite, with thousands of contributors, rather than one. The underlying reality of that, is that it is a composite of code modules that creates the perceived infringement (only in countries with software patents) not any of the individual modules, as each module has a specific range of non infringing functions and it is only when combined, in effect compiled and the application assembled, that infringement occurs. Whilst I made not have contributed any code, does that mean lawyers will attempt to sue me for compiling, others peoples code and creating the final application (amongst the millions of others), bearing in mind that I am also free to distribute the completed applications as log as I adhere to the FOSS licences ie. make available the underlying non infringing components.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Press F7, click options, select your dictionaries, check boxes for spellcheck as you type.
I think your experience with OO is PEBCAK related.
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