Microsoft predicts chaos if Word sales are halted

24 Aug 2009

Microsoft has warned that the injunction preventing it from selling Word in the US after October 10th would cause "massive disruptions" to sales of its Office software.

The IT giant says halting sales of one of its main products would cause problems aswell to key partners like Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

"Even if Microsoft ultimately succeeds on appeal, it will never be able to recoup the funds expended in redesigning and redistributing Word, the sales lost during the period when Word and Office are barred from the market, and the diminished goodwill from Microsoft's many retail and industrial customers," Microsoft argued.

US District Court Judge Leonard Davis issued the injunction ordering that Microsoft pay $290 million in damages and interest to Toronto-based i4i Inc. The court said Microsoft infringed on that company's patent for a document system that uses XML custom formatting.

The i4i technology allows users of Word 2003, Word 2007 and Word for Mac 2008 to create custom XML documents.

print this article