Canadian Company Wins Patent Infringement Suit Against Microsoft

A U.S. judge has given Microsoft 60 days to comply with an injunction verdict, brought down by an earlier court, that said that the company had willfully infringed on a patent belonging to i4i LP of Toronto, the judge has awarded i4i about $290-million (U.S.) in damages. The injunction also bans Microsoft from selling, in the U.S., copies of Word 2003, Word 2007 and future versions of the office software that use i4i's technology without a licence.

“We feel vindicated with this result,” said Michel Vulpe, founder of privately held i4i and an inventor of the disputed patent. “We did not go into business to litigate, we build products that serve our customers' needs.”

Microsoft says it will appeal the decision.

Source: Globe and Mail

Microsoft And Nokia Hooking Up - Office On Smartphones

Microsoft and Nokia are rumored to be announcing a deal today that will bring Microsoft Office to Nokia handsets. The move is a preemptive strike at the emerging competitive threat from free Web-based word processing, spreadsheet and other office related software, from Google primarily. Both companies are feeling the heat in their perspective market places, Nokia is losing smartphone market share to Apple's iPhone line, Research in Motion's BlackBerry devices and Google Android powered devices. Microsoft on the other hand is fighting to keep it's cash cow Office line relevant.

Source: New York Times

Microsoft's Downloadable Office Suite

Microsoft has announced a downloadable, subscription-based version of it's popular Microsoft Office, codenamed "Albany". The suite is currently available to users who signed up for beta testing and will offer Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, with the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. According to this CBC article, "It will also include the Microsoft Office Live Workspace connector on the Microsoft Office toolbar, where users will be able to save documents online and share them with others, as well as security and backup services." Microsoft is not planning on retiring the sale of software on media, stating "At the same time, we are definitely not straying from our traditional software sales model. There will always be a significant number of users for whom purchasing a perpetual license to the latest version of Office is still the best choice." While no one is suggesting that Google's Docs are posing a serious threat at this time, I think Microsoft is seeing software as a service as a reality.

Microsoft surprises analysts with strong quarter

Stronger than anticipated sales of Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007, not to mention the lift provided by Halo 3 and subsequent Xbox 360 sales, have propelled Microsoft to a healthy quarter and the market responded favorably with a 12% jump in stock price. Despite strong growth in it's core business Microsoft still has a long way to go in it's online business. “Strategically, looking forward, the challenge for Microsoft is cloud computing and Google,” according to David Mitchell Smith, Gartner analyst. NY Times story here.

Microsoft offers Office Ultimate 2007 on a students budget

Calling it "The Ultimate Steal", Microsoft has announced student pricing for the Office Ultimate 2007 edition. According to a Microsoft release, "Students who are actively enrolled at eligible educational institutions will be able to acquire Office Ultimate 2007 via the Web at the low student price of US$59.95." The offer is extended to students in the US, Canada, and the UK, now and will be offered to those in Spain, Italy and France as of September 20th. A one-year subscription license will also be offered for £12.95/€ 18.00/C$22.00 outside of the US.

OpenOffice.org target of virus writters?

In a recent press release OpenOffice.org has acknowledged that it is possible that virus writers may have targeted their open source office suite via it's macro support. The OpenOffice.org security team has apparently not received a copy of the reported virus, "SB/BadBunny-A", and will respond once they have had an opportunity to analyze the threat. While I have not personally tried the OpenOffice.org product I have heard good things about the software and support the idea of open source. I am sure that with Sun Microsystems behind it, it is a solid suite of products and should be considered a contender when you are looking for office software at home or a work. The price is definitely right! I will give it a download and a serious look once the virus threat has been addressed. I should stress that the other major office suites are constantly marked as targets of virus authors so my reservations for downloading at the moment are not because I think OpenOffice.org is more vulnerable than my current office suite. I'm also not inclined to open files from anyone that I don't know or that I am not expecting files from, even if I know them; this is just good practice.