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Microsoft Ordered To Stop Selling Microsoft Word

By Jeralyn, Section Off Topic
Posted on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:14:13 PM EST
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Microsoft Office 2007 sells $3 billion a year. It contains Microsoft Word. An appeals court has upheld an injunction against the sale of Word beginning Jan. 11, because a portion of it infringes on a patent for xml held by a Canadian company.

The ruling means Microsoft can't sell versions of Word that can open documents saved in the .XML, .DOCX, or .DOCM formats that contain custom XML.

Microsoft plans to abide by the injunction and stop selling Word 2007, releasing new versions without the xml editor.

I have Microsoft Office but I've never liked Word. I'll take WordPerfect over Word any day, it's all I write in, but aside from a handful of lawyers who can't break the WP habit, I'm sure I'm in the minority. Maybe Corel will come out with a new version of WP and get back in the game.

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    Microsoft Ordered To Stop Selling Microsoft Word | 43 comments (43 topical)

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    OpenOffice isn't bad (5.00 / 1) (#2)
    by rdandrea on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:40:44 PM EST
    Except for the database part of it, which more or less stinks.

    This conversation reminds me of the (5.00 / 1) (#41)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 02:39:34 PM EST
    conversations we had when TL changed to the format you see today.

    Once you get used to something, and it works fine for you, it's a real pita to learn to use something new.

    I'm with you, J (none / 0) (#1)
    by caseyOR on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:27:58 PM EST
    Love WordPerfect, hate Microsoft Word. I wish everyone would go back to WP.

    Same here -- but in such a minority (none / 0) (#9)
    by Cream City on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:56:34 PM EST
    these days.  And I have to convert documents to Word for work, which requires going back in to the Word doc to fix all sorts of oddities that crop up.

    I've tried, I've tried, to work in Word.  It just doesn't work well for what I do.

    Parent

    Exactly (none / 0) (#18)
    by Jeralyn on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:34:41 PM EST
    "I've tried, I've tried, to work in Word.  It just doesn't work well for what I do."

    WP is just so easy and logical.

    Parent

    Yes, the term is "intuitive" (none / 0) (#19)
    by Cream City on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:50:06 PM EST
    so I'm told by the techies.  Word is just counter-intuitive for me.  I'm also told that it can have to do with different ways that different brains work -- maybe right-brain, left-brain stuff.  Just as some of us don't like Macs, but artists and architects and graphic designers -- more visual or  spatial thinkers or something -- sure do.  (And I'm not bereft of artistic inclination or ability, but I'm more of a writer sort.)

    Parent
    What is it with Lawyers and WordPerfect? (none / 0) (#3)
    by Key on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:44:02 PM EST
    I mean really?  What is it with Lawyers and WordPerfect?  I still get too many documents sent to me from lawyers in old WordPerfect formats.  It seems like lawyers are the last holdouts....

    Ugh.  Word surpassed WordPerfect in terms of usability and features, years ago.

    Oh, I suppose I should clarify a bit - it seems like it's older attorneys who use WordPerfect.  All the younger attorneys I know (unless they are at some of the older large firms) use Word.

    There's something about the formatting (none / 0) (#6)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:47:36 PM EST
    that was helpful for some reason. Someone explained it to me once, but I can't remember why exactly. I can tell you that the Justice Department kept using it in part because of the Microsoft antitrust suit.

    Parent
    Yes, the formatting in WP (none / 0) (#10)
    by Cream City on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:59:31 PM EST
    is so much easier and transparent -- easier to set or change margins, spacing, etc., and in case something acts up, to go in and reveal codes not visible in the doc.  When something acts up in Word, I'm stumped as to how to go see what cannot be seen in the doc and is making a mess of it.

    And footnoting or endnoting?  Easy as can be in WP.  Not so easy in Word.  That makes it even more difficult to help students do citations well.

    Parent

    That's it, WP has "reveal codes" (none / 0) (#12)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:03:48 PM EST
    That doesn't work in Word because Word uses sophisticated (and still quite buggy) "styles." Once you learn how to use styles, Word becomes much easier.

    As to citations, they're actually really quite easy in the latest version of Word. If you follow the instructions, the software will even format Chicago style correctly both in the notes and in the bibliography. You just put the info in once and click when you need to use it again.

    Parent

    Well, I have the latest version (none / 0) (#13)
    by Cream City on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:07:14 PM EST
    so maybe I'll give it a try on some project.  But -- probably like lawyers -- so many of my projects evolve from earlier projects, as we all have our specialized areas.  So moving back and forth becomes very problematic, with the flawed conversions.  But I'll keep this in mind; note to self: think reveal codes, click styles. :-)

    Parent
    You have to buy a special software package (none / 0) (#14)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:12:21 PM EST
    to handle legal citation. It's even more complicated than Chicago because it's pretty sensitive to whether and when you cited the same source somewhere else in the text. Students learn to do it manually. . .

    As to styles and reveal codes, the basic mental conversion just doesn't work. It would as if you were to "think horse and buggy, and purchase jet airplane,"

    Parent

    I guess (none / 0) (#15)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:18:26 PM EST
    it depends on where you come from.

    I have a much easier time formatting things in Word than I ever did in Word Perfect.

    Parent

    I believe that WordPerfect was (none / 0) (#22)
    by Inspector Gadget on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 08:40:15 PM EST
    originally designed for the Legal world. Word didn't even get introduced until years after WP was in use by every administrative person with a PC. That clean screen where we could type and format from the keyboard was magic. In WP, I could type test over 120 wpm. In Word, I'm lucky to hit 95.

    The east coast stayed with WP for years beyond the west coast. Reason for that: PNW location of Microsoft -- stock was held by the western CEO's and male company decision-makers. They had to tear WP away from us, but eventually we gave up.

    I kept WP on my home computer until just a few years ago and created many awesome documents blending the two programs. Still, if someone offered me the choice....I'd go back to WP in a shot!


    Parent

    Could be. I heard it was academe (none / 0) (#29)
    by Cream City on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 11:24:12 PM EST
    where WP started, and it was de rigeur for at least a decade with its great footnoting functions.  And yes, I'm with you that I love the clean page, like a crisp new sheet we used to roll into a typewriter!

    But administrators determine the "campus standard" -- or even that there need be such a thing -- and all across the country, that became Word.  Ugh.  Why did it never occur to me to assert faculty governance and demand that we make the choice?  At least survey each other about it and debate it endlessly?  That has stalled off a lot of admin imperatives. :-)

    Parent

    The gov't used WordPerfect (none / 0) (#42)
    by Inspector Gadget on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 03:05:19 PM EST
    I worked in medical device manufacturing... regulatory affairs until 1995. The company switched to MS products in 1993 because the corporate executives owned stock in Microsoft and wanted to use the MS Office bundle Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Schedule Plus. The entire company switched, but our department had to keep WP because the FDA was in the process of setting up an electronic submission system and they could only accept documents in WP.

    I believe the gov't switched not terribly long after that, though because the majority of business was living by Microsoft products.


    Parent

    They are? (none / 0) (#4)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:45:33 PM EST
    This will be a disaster for them. I assume there is some kind of appeal in the works.

    Word (none / 0) (#5)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:47:27 PM EST
    I've been using Word since the days when you put a 5.25 inch floppy into the drive to run Word, then replace "the Word disk" with another 5.25 inch floppy used to save the Word file....yes, the days before even DUAL FLOPPY DRIVES.  I was ecstatic when I got my new 10 mb hard disk.

    But I like Word.  I could never grasp why anyone would choose Word Perfect.

    I used to write full-on applications in the programming language that ships with Word, complete with accessing custom C++ DLL's I wrote to perform external database tasks...  Word is a POWERFUL, extensible tool.

    I'm glad I got a copy of Word 2007 before they stopped selling it.  I can compose my blog posts in it and upload them to Wordpress with just a save command....really, really nice.  

    No affil.

    WordPerfect for DOS (none / 0) (#7)
    by Steve M on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:52:45 PM EST
    was a great application for us secretarial types who used it every day.  Now the Windows version, that was another pile of crap altogether.  But I loved the DOS version.

    Parent
    Interestingly, Word was developed for Mac first (none / 0) (#8)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 05:55:49 PM EST


    Parent
    Graphical Word (none / 0) (#16)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:19:27 PM EST
    may have been developed for Mac first.  Word for Xenix and Word for DOS came before Word for the Mac and then Word for Windows next.

    Parent
    That's right, the Mac version came before (none / 0) (#17)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:23:53 PM EST
    the Windows version. And then MS attempted (for reasons that made sense to them at the time) to port the Windows version back to Mac. That turned into the disaster also known as Word 6.

    Many Mac graybeards consider Word 5.1 to be the pinnacle of word processing software.

    Parent

    The first version (none / 0) (#11)
    by TeresaInSnow2 on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 06:02:17 PM EST
     of "Word for Windows" was also crap.

    Parent
    I'm in the Word Perfect camp (none / 0) (#20)
    by BackFromOhio on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 07:04:03 PM EST
    for sure.  Much more user friendly.  I saw a program on PBS some years ago when Bill Gates admitted that DOS (which he created) was not the greatest program around, but he knew how to sell it.  That's the way I feel about Word -- a lousy program, illogical, irritatingly time-consuming to use -- unless you don't care that the program takes over and tells you how to format and how to use language (which I find rather amusing, but sad), but Microsoft knew how to market its products and make customers think it was the cat's meow.  
    I was drafting a business plan for a bunch of techies a few years back, including a techie who was writing XML programming for transmitting music & video over wireless devices; when I showed him some of the features of WP, he agreed it was a better program!

    WP did not (5.00 / 1) (#21)
    by mollypitcher on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 07:50:42 PM EST
    get in the way of the writing itself; Word did.  But now I am using Open Office, which also seems not to intervene between the writer and the process of writing.  

    Parent
    What is (none / 0) (#23)
    by BackFromOhio on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 08:42:10 PM EST
    "Open Office"?

    I think that people like myself who prefer WP type fast, know the key board, and do not want to have to stop, look, eye-hand coordinate and then click.  And you?

    WP 5.1 for DOS was great for me because I had all of the format codes memorized and could speed type along without having to stop to look at anything and click.  

    Parent

    Open Office (5.00 / 1) (#25)
    by mollypitcher on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 09:02:41 PM EST
    is the main word processing suite for Linux.  I hated to give up WP at first, but Open Office has taken over here. (I went reluctantly from Windows 95* to Linux, as I disliked what I had seen of 98).  Actually my first word processor was the Coleco Adam (it did not boot up as a 'computer'). This was back before the time of DOS. 3.1., before the PC and Charlie Chaplin, when every computer brand had its own language.

    *95 still is installed and usable on the old IBM upstairs.

    Parent

    Open Office Works fine on Windows (none / 0) (#28)
    by Manuel on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 10:29:40 PM EST
    You don't have to switch to Linux to try it.

    Parent
    You had a Cabbage Patch computer (none / 0) (#31)
    by Cream City on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 11:29:31 PM EST
    too?  That was my first computer, too, almost 30 years ago, the Adam -- and what a brilliant concept it was, supercheap with no need for a monitor, just using that flip switch to use the tv screen.  

    But try to tell young uns today about cassettes for storage instead of disks!  And omigod, that printer that required putting in one sheet of paper at a time.  I was going to do my master's thesis on it, but at more than a hundred pages and up against a deadline -- well, my spouse brought home from his office a good ol' Selectric II for me, and I just typed the whole thing in a weekend.  Typewriters still went faster than computers in those days for word-processing purposes.

    And our first game!  How my kids and I loved to pop in the cassette to play Jeopardy, with that weirdly digitized Vanna in grays on grays, no fancy colors or effects yet.  But fun, much fun.

    Parent

    introducing Adam (none / 0) (#34)
    by mollypitcher on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 10:54:55 AM EST
    I got that for my son and me when he was in 5th grade (36 now).  And I used it to write a book--a  guy in Illinois invented a way to link Adam to an inkjet. The language was Adamsoft, a variation on Applesoft, I think.  My prof. husband used that Adam long after I made the switch; I had even acquired a used spare.  Games were good and so was Adamcalc (based on the first spreadsheet).  They should have buried the connection to Coleco--that made it into a joke.

    The univ. physics dept stocked its 'computer room' with the first Commodores* (4K?); we waited and got a C 64 for my son's games.  Next came our Amiga, another wonderful machine that got swamped.  Amiga could beat Apple hands down in the music field and was even daisy chained for use by scientists.

    You can see that I have been carefully avoiding MS for all these years, except for the Aptiva with Windows 95 that is still in perfect working condition upstairs.  (What to do with it?)

    *just read that Bill G. helped develop the Commodore Basic OS.

    Parent

    I went form (none / 0) (#32)
    by Jeralyn on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 01:52:55 AM EST
    an IBM Selectric (with copies on carbon paper because xerox machines weren't mainstream at the time) to a huge word processor that took up half the room and cost $25,000. It was great to type on and I almost didn't want to give it up for a computer when they came out. But I did, and got WP, and fell in love with it.  Word is far less intuitive and the WP document looks nicer. Nowadays,the newer versions of WP and Word can read each other, but there's still spacing and formatting issues. Our US Attorney's office here uses WordPerfect so it's great when we are drafting changes to documents, we can do it in the same program.

    I still have issues with Adobe Acrobat pdf too. If you want it to be searchable, you have to ocr the text. When you get 500 pages at a time, who has the time or money to do that first?  You can't edit it. But one thing Adobe has that's excellent for projects is Adobe Portfolio. As soon as I've read the discovery once (thousands of pages usually, plus transcripts and audio of intercepted calls, grand jury testimony, etc,) I send it to my investigatgor who OCR's everthing and then makes virtual binders.  When he returns it, if I'm reading an affidavit for a wiretap, that discusses a certain call, he'll have a picture of a paperclip in the margin and when I click on it, the actual call comes so I can listen without going to hunt it down. Same for the transcript of the call. Or surveillance report if they're discussing so and so was surveilled going to Mom's house. I just click the paperclip and up comes the original report of the incident. Even the photo of the place will come up. It's like having everything you need at the touch of one button. I'm trying to learn how to make my own portfolios in cases where my client doesn't have the ability to hire an investigator.

    Parent

    WANG? (none / 0) (#40)
    by Inspector Gadget on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 02:37:43 PM EST
    I only used one of those monsters once.

    Parent
    Open Office has a storied history (none / 0) (#26)
    by andgarden on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 09:03:35 PM EST
    Today, it's a clunky (but "free") attempt to replicate Word from four versions ago.

    Parent
    Actually (none / 0) (#36)
    by Gisleson on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 01:17:14 PM EST
    Microsoft didn't invent DOS, they bought it from another company. Really, about the only thing Microsoft has contributed to information technology is a rabid focus on proprietary systems and maximizing their profits based on the ability of customers to pay, and not based on any intrinsic worth in their software.

    Word 5.1.a for Macintosh (circa 1992) is probably the best word processing software ever. Since 1992 Microsoft has done its damnedest to make Word as kludgy and overloaded as possible.

    Existing copyright and patent law is insufferably biased towards impeding technology and stifling creativity. Every time a new MS Office comes out Excel users (accountants) get a better program while Word users (secretaries) are forced to wait for fixes for yet another halfway finished upgrade to Word.

    Parent

    Where are you coming up with this? (none / 0) (#39)
    by Inspector Gadget on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 02:34:31 PM EST
    You think the high schoolers who designed DOS and sold it to IBM actually bought the operating system program from someone else? Who? When? and WHY in heaven's name would the writer sell it?

    Microsoft managed to get hardware manufacturers to load and sell all new computers with MS software....years after DOS was purchased by IBM from Bill Gates and his team of designers.


    Parent

    I mentioned word 5.1 (none / 0) (#43)
    by andgarden on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 04:43:06 PM EST
    MS made some mistakes with Office, and Word in particular, But I think it's unfair to say that the people who work on it (including and especially the overstressed folks at the Macintosh Business Unit) don't care whether the software is any good. It's just bloated and tries to be too many things to too many people. They've been working on solving that problem for a few versions, but it's not easy.

    Now Gates did threaten to kill the Mac version back in the bad old days, but that's a different story.

    Parent

    what is it with lawyers and WP? (none / 0) (#24)
    by pluege on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 08:53:30 PM EST
    talk about your dinosaurs. WP was best 15 years ago, and no doubt Word was invented by people intent on ending civilization as we know, but give it up already, you can't fight City Hall.

    Honestly I didn't even know WordPerfect (none / 0) (#27)
    by ruffian on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 09:45:53 PM EST
    still existed. I never used it. I'm so old that when I first had to start writing software user documents,  the company had a Word Processing DEPARTMENT!!! I sent rough handwritten or text-edited drafts up to them and they used whatever word processor they were using - WP or Word, I have no idea, and then I red-lined it, they did it over, etc.  My friends and I laugh about it now.

    I've only ever used Word - but I hate it. Curse it every day. On my home computer I have Apple's Pages word processor, and I hate to say it, but I'm not sure it is better. I don't use it enough to really know, since all my professional stuff is in Word.

    Worse still, the latest Word versions for Apple and Windows do not look and operate at all alike. We went to Office 2007 at work, and I do like that version of Word a lot better than the old one, but on my Mac at home the version of Word is some mixed bag of older versions. Ugh. No wonder most of my writing is on blogs!

    Older: (none / 0) (#35)
    by mollypitcher on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 11:00:37 AM EST
    Star, for one.

    Parent
    One of the reasons WordPerfect vanished (none / 0) (#37)
    by Gisleson on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 01:19:38 PM EST
    is because Microsoft rewrote their software and OS to make it radically incompatible with WP. People didn't leave WP because it stopped being a good product. People abandoned it because Microsoft applications would crash in the presence of WordPerfect.

    All part of how the world's biggest abusive monopoly kept its monopoly in the face of better competition.

    Parent

    Not true (none / 0) (#38)
    by Inspector Gadget on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 02:31:53 PM EST
    where are you coming up with this stuff?

    Very few people ever went to OS, and it died an early death because nothing worked on it.

    Parent

    Software patents need to go (none / 0) (#30)
    by Manuel on Tue Dec 22, 2009 at 11:28:12 PM EST
    Many will be happy because Microsoft lost this case.  However, this is another example of how preposterous software patents can be.

    I use open office for myself (none / 0) (#33)
    by Jen M on Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 10:24:46 AM EST
    And we are required to use word at work.

    But if I had to pay for one I would choose WordPerfect in a heartbeat.

    Reveal Codes. That trumps everything.

    Microsoft Ordered To Stop Selling Microsoft Word | 43 comments (43 topical)

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