Microsoft Word. Still Illegal, Changing. Oops! No Difference!

Back in August, I told you about a Ruling in US District Court that effectively made Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office illegal. Banned. Not OK to sell. Well, that ruling has been upheld. Microsoft has been ordered to stop selling Word and Office, starting in about three weeks. And they’re complying.

So what kind of business change does this mean for Microsoft? How does “none” strike you?

Here’s the wrap: Microsoft has built software belonging to Canadian company i4i into Word 2007. They didn’t pay for that software. What does the software do? It compresses Word files into that janky .docx format that showed up in Word 2007. It wasn’t there in Office 2003, and it’ll be gone in Office 2010.

Right. While they’ll have to make an adjustment if they wish to keep selling Office 2007 between now and when Office 2010 is officially released, the reality in Redmond is that this doesn’t even qualify as a speed bump.

Sure, the next step will be that i4i will sue Microsoft, this time to recover damages, and Microsoft will eventually pay them to go away. But the takeaway is this:

1. Microsoft can afford that
2. The tweak to Office 2007 is simple and all but meaningless in Microsoft’s plans
3. The real shame is that there will be a settlement instead of a trial, or a set of further appeals

Why? Because the much larger issue here is whether software patents as a construct are too broad, too easy to obtain, and ought to be issued differently. Oh wait: Microsoft doesn’t want that question addressed in court, and neither does i4i or any company making a living trading in intellectual property.

That would be REAL business change, of exactly the type that scares companies like Microsoft more than any little lawsuit can.