Slashdot Mirror
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 $670 'full-version' suite. All other Windows editions, as well as Office 2008 for Mac, were accompanied by the message: 'This product is currently unavailable while we update versions on our site. We expect it to be available soon.' Microsoft confirmed that the disappearance of Office was related to the injunction that came out of a patent infringement case the company lost in 2009. 'We've taken steps to comply with the court's ruling and we're introducing the revised software into the US market," said Michael Croan, a senior marketing manager, in an e-mail. He also downplayed the move. 'This process will be imperceptible to the vast majority of customers, who will find both trial and purchase options readily available.'"
Perfect opportunity for Open Office to gain some ground. You and I may not know the people, but there will be someone out there who needs to download Office during the week for an assignment or work task, and will be unable to buy their legitimate version online. So the person goes to google and types in "office suite" and what comes up first? OO.org
... they should also have to deactivate every (legal) copy that's currently out in the wild. After all, the software industry has been telling us for years that we don't really get to buy software, just rent it. So surely it can't be legal for Microsoft to continue to rent out software that violates someone else's patent!
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
M$ complying with the law is news.
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.
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
Recognizing that Microsoft is a bad corporate citizen is not "hate based anti-Microsoft drivel".
They have a long history of using other people's innovation without permission, and this case is no exception. I4i is no patent troll, they produced, sold and still sell an XML editing tool. They have a very specific patent, specific enough that other implementations (like ODF) don't infringe.
Sopssa is an apologist. He participated in the original discussion, and has to be aware that this patent suit is fair and valid, and yet is still dismissive of i4i's efforts. That isn't reasonable behavour, it's fanboism or worse.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."