No Word for the Wise -- Redmond Channel Partner

Barney's Blog

No Word for the Wise

Now this is a mindblower: A Canadian company beat the barrister-packed Microsoft and as a result, Word will no longer be for sale in America in two months. It sounds nuts, but i4i LP owns an XML patent which da judge ruled Word violates.

The ruling awards gives i4i a cool $290 million -- a drop in the old Redmond bucket. It looks like Microsoft may appeal, but my guess is it will pull out a few moneybags and toss 'em i4i's way.

Much more importantly, though, the decision goes right to the core of Word, the .DOCX file format (which I avoid, preferring to save in older .DOC formats). Do you like the XML-based .DOCX file format, or are you upset that only other Word 2007 users can open them unless they have a translator? Yeses and nos equally welcome at [email protected].

Posted by Doug Barney on August 17, 2009

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