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Microsoft is fined 290 million dollars.


Damjan

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Software giant Microsoft has been ordered by a judge to pay more than 290 million dollars in a patent case.

The court ruled that Microsoft knowingly infringed on a patent belonging to Toronto-based i4i, a software manufacturing company.

The alleged infringement occured during the making of MSWord and Microsoft’s Vista Operating System.

“i4i will do its utmost to support custom XML users, which is particularly important to implement the ISO 29500 OOXML standard,” Michel Vulpe, i4i’s founder said in a statement.

Microsoft is subsequently banned from selling any type of Word product that can open XML files (.xml, .docx and .docm).

Will this result in the end of Microsoft Office? Only time will tell.

Source: dBTechno

lawl.

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I'm sorry this seems like a step backwards to me. MS finally starts doing something right by using a format based on XML resulting in a number of benefits, greater compatibility and hugely smaller filesizes for a start, and now they get told they can't. What now, go back to the old .doc format?

And no it won't result in the end of Office. It's far too widely used in industry. Non tech-savvy people hate change, employees will complain if their company switches to OO and will want Office back. Unless they make their product worse and worse every year I doubt anything will change in terms of market share.

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And if ReactOS goes gold, then say goodbye to Ballmer and his stupid Windows.

Bold: agreed ;)

Me too, although as of now ROS is still WIP/alpha, and it'll take eons at that rate for them to make it as usable as its proipretary counterpart. And expect Ramchyld to rejoice at this news, Steam... :hurrhurr:

I'm sorry this seems like a step backwards to me. MS finally starts doing something right by using a format based on XML resulting in a number of benefits, greater compatibility and hugely smaller filesizes for a start, and now they get told they can't. What now, go back to the old .doc format?

And no it won't result in the end of Office. It's far too widely used in industry. Non tech-savvy people hate change, employees will complain if their company switches to OO and will want Office back. Unless they make their product worse and worse every year I doubt anything will change in terms of market share.

Yeah, they got used to it, much like when those office workers at a plastics factory that I freelanced at one time were rather alienated at OO compared to the ubitiquous MS Office.

Edited by Huckleberry Pie
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I love all these kiddies and their twisted views on anarchy. Yay, let's take MS down. Yeah, nobody should ever use windows ever, yeah, lets watch that happen, and see us plunged into the dark ages.

Chris said it, non tech savvy people hate change. People who work in offices, banks, shops, everything, all unable to now use a computer, because it's not windows. So they're fired. So, unemployment rates explode.

Yeah, fuck Microsoft.

Oh, and they can probably pay that off from down the back of the sofa. I bet they're proper gutted.

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*sigh*

I love how people believe everything they read on the internets, and then make judgements on it.

Microsoft is subsequently banned from selling any type of Word product that can open XML files (.xml, .docx and .docm).

This is a lie. It applies to CUSTOM xml.

Will this result in the end of Microsoft Office?

Worst thing that could happen is that the custom XML feature is removed from Word. No biggie.

Do you seriously think the world would be a better place without Office? If you do, you're seriously deluded.

And if ReactOS goes gold, then say goodbye to Ballmer and his stupid Windows.

Its hilarious how ReactOS describes itself as being "based on the design of Windows® XP/2003", yet you call windows "stupid". If it's stupid, why copy it then associate yourself with it? Maybe it's not perfect, but then maybe you've not used Windows 7. (ps: vista is crap, everyone knows it, win7 is amazing)

Oh, and they can probably pay that off from down the back of the sofa. I bet they're proper gutted.

I think we get one less free can of coke each this year?

Big business is what kills economies.

Not true. Yes, quite often businesses become stupidly large and take over the small businesses' market (eg Tesco/walmart), but people use Tesco out of choice (brand loyalty, sells everything, 24/7 opening, discounts).

People forget that Microsoft do a LOT more than just sell Windows and Office to home users - in fact we barely sell anything to home users. Most of the world runs on technologies such as BizTalk and SQL, and we do shitloads for small businesses, including schemes like BizSpark, the MS Partner network and many different licensing formats to help them get started and get off the ground.

I do greatly dislike Microsoft because of how all they can think about is making money

That's also untrue. Yes, the future of the business is something we have to bear in mind, and expanding where it is useful; but it's not all we think about. I work in a department of MS that offers proactive engineering services - that means we teach business to do stuff right, so their networks don't fail. If all we cared about was money, we'd wait for things to fail, then charge them millions to fix it. Our department does both the proactive (preventative) stuff and the reactive "oh my god the MOD is broken" stuff, and 85% is proactive. Our department is not there to make a profit, we just pay our wages and make sure we have enough staff to meet demand.

If you guys really hate Microsoft, why do 90% of you still use Windows, Office, MSN, hotmail etc every day? If you are retarded enough to need to prove your hatred, then why not stick to Linux and Google for everything? There's no shame in it, but why do you all act like its cool to hate us?

EDIT: Oh look how evil we are

EDIT: This is what Custom XML is. Nothing to do with docx files or 99% of word features.

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It's more than that Gerard.

98% of visitors to TGTAP use a Microsoft OS.

45% of visitors to TGTAP use a Microsoft web browser.

Also thanks for clearing up the XML thing, I was hoping that was the case. Didn't really trust the source. Good to hear docx will still be used by Office. I like OOo as well but it's doc/docx handling is not that great, and since that's what everyone uses I wanna be able to read stuff correctly.

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One of the many things i like about linux gerard, is that it doesn't have BSOD.Only a screensaver BSOD is put in Linux...

To prove that.

http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

http://members.apex-internet.com/sa/windowslinux/

The second one is from an IT pro.

The only reason i have Windows, is because my brother and mother use it, im using Ubuntu and dad's using Fedora.

Edited by Sтεαм.
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I use Windows because I've used it most of my life and so it's familiar and easy for me. And because I'm poor. However, if Google were to release on OS, I'd jump on using it. I refuse to use Bing because.... Ugh....

And quite frankly, I highly doubt that "Browser for the Better" was because of how good-natured MS is. More than likely? Cheap marketing ploy.

I'm not going to change my opinion on MS as a corporation based on how good your departments are, Gerard. That doesn't change what corporations do. They've already gone into domination mode. I doubt any business can reach that size without attempting it.

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Spaz - everything you say there is fair and justified. I agree big corporations exist to grow and absorb, it's what they're built to do. There's no reason to stop if you think you do it better than the other guys. In politics, thats quite often what fuels wars (thinking you're right and deserve to rule all).

Steam - what are you smoking? Linux is better because when it crashes the debug screens are a different colour? That's utter nonsense. If you mean "linux doesnt crash", then you've obviously not used it enough. There's a lot less software

I'm sorry but you think that just because someone says they are an "IT Pro" that makes them right? I'm an IT professional, I get paid to work full-time in an IT company, does that automatically make me correct? I'm a technology journalist that's written for many publications including regional newspapers and Tom's Hardware Guide, does that mean everyone should believe what I say?

There's nothing wrong with using Linux - I use it every day on my servers. I also use various google applications, and I use Windows 7. That simply means I've made the choice that is right for me, and I never say other people are 'wrong' for preferring something different. Depending on their requirements, I'll often recommend buying a mac or whatever. But if you go around bashing Microsoft for no real reason, laughing at people to choose to use Windows, hypocritically using dozens of our products every day, and of course relying on them existing for banks, shops and the government to work; then that just makes you a bit of a cock really.

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Another point there, from 10 top companies, 5 use Linux on their servers, 3 use FreeBSD, and 2 use windows.

On servers, Linux rarely crashes, with Windows the server constantly reboots after a day or two.(this is proven)

Also, Vista was an overpriced OS which was crap.

UAC fucks everything up, you have to set permissions with checking, then confirmation to do that etc.

UAC ran on everything i ran at the beginning.(20 sec to run it)UAC turned off=2-3 secs.

MS should remove UAC, pure crap.

Edited by Sтεαм.
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Oh not this again.

"UAC fucks everything up" - right, so an annoying prompt which asks you to click OK a few too many times fucks everything up? Wow you're more fragile than I thought.

"MS should remove UAC" - well we halved it for windows 7, which is the current (released) OS. Stop talking about vista, we all know it was sub-standard.

"Top 10 companies" - Worldwide corporations? FTSE 100? American companies? Top 10 websites? Top 10 hosting companies? Top 10 google results? At least explain what you're making stuff up about.

Oh and a quote from your "IT Pro" that you <3 so much:

And more recently they have gone so far as to come up with their own browser technology called Silverlight, to compete with Javascript. Their said goal is to enrich web pages with extra functionality. However, Javascript has been around for many years and is supported in every web browser, including older versions of browsers.

Bollocks. Silverlight is for applications, not just websites. I'd love to see you try to make Deep Zoom in javascript (zoom into the stamp on the letters from the beatles)

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I do greatly dislike Microsoft because of how all they can think about is making money (like every other corporation) but I will admit that Windows and MS Office are the only ones I will EVER use.

Raybob, this is the kind of retarded crap that makes people wish you'd get banned.

'Oh yeah, I hate this particular murderer because he murders people (like every murderer)'

You're such a tool.

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Another point there, from 10 top companies, 5 use Linux on their servers, 3 use FreeBSD, and 2 use windows.

On servers, Linux rarely crashes, with Windows the server constantly reboots after a day or two.(this is proven)

Also, Vista was an overpriced OS which was crap.

UAC fucks everything up, you have to set permissions with checking, then confirmation to do that etc.

UAC ran on everything i ran at the beginning.(20 sec to run it)UAC turned off=2-3 secs.

MS should remove UAC, pure crap.

Gerard made to point about UAC, so I won't say anything about that..

But the part about servers.. Well, yeah.. I'm not a pro, but as far as I know Server software of MS is pretty decent, but simply not as flexible as Linux is. Big deal.. So Linux is at least good in something.

And by that reasoning. 90% of all users use Windows, so everything else is bad.

I do greatly dislike Microsoft because of how all they can think about is making money (like every other corporation) but I will admit that Windows and MS Office are the only ones I will EVER use.

Yeah, like we like working till we drop dead for nothing.. Come on, wake up. Go to Cuba otherwise..

What I really hate is all the fines MS is getting.. 3 billion, at the minimum. Hello, is there a single soul in the world that thinks such fines a reasonable? In the end we're just paying for all of that crap, MS won't change their business model because the EU doesn't like a few things..

Oh, and I like how the website of Steam says that Linux is a bit more friendly than Windows, while Linux is known for only being used by geeks, because, well, isn't that obvious?

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I'm not saying Linux is better Gerard, but im not saying that it's worse too.

I tried to say that MS finally made an OS that can compete with the speed of Linux.

And also, if there's a bug, you can't fix it yourself, unlike Linux, if you're experienced enough you can fix a problem yourself, or report it for future versions.

From MS you wait months till you get a patch/update for that.

Open source is better that closed source.

And i cbf to type anymore about Windows and Linux, so argument end.Period.

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I'm not saying Linux is better Gerard, but im not saying that it's worse too.

*cough*

I tried to say that MS finally made an OS that can compete with the speed of Linux.

Win 7 is about as fast as Vista in benchmarks...

And also, if there's a bug, you can't fix it yourself, unlike Linux, if you're experienced enough you can fix a problem yourself, or report it for future versions.

Like my parents would be able to do that... As if you'd be able to do that. Don't think so.

From MS you wait months till you get a patch/update for that.

They're pretty fast IMO, and much faster than Apple.

Open source is better that closed source.

Any arguments supporting that?

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Actually Win7 is as fast as XP in benchmarks, way faster than Vista. Especially on low-powered machines like my work netbook, and especially with startup time.

Yes linux is more of an open OS (not source code, in terms of control), which lets you stop services etc; but that's also a massive security risk if you use root much. People have a bad habit of logging onto Windows machines as administrators, when they really shouldn't - they can just elevate when they need to install something (like sudo).

If there's a REAL problem, we patch quickly. If you're talking about feature requests, of course it takes time. Don't forget we test every single change to death, which takes weeks.

Steam - you misunderstand my point. Linux is better for some uses, Windows is better for some. It's also best for non-technical people to stick with one way of doing things, rather than using something different at work to at home.

I lol'd at "Open source is better that closed source" - as if every single bit of software that is public is better than every bit of software that isn't.

I also lol'd at the backdoors page. A number of people on my floor have access to source code, and of course we are all engineers, and I can promise there are no backdoors. The only reason we keep stuff closed-source is to stop people stealing it.

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