It's the end of MS Word as we know it?

If so, well then I feel fine.  Thank you thank you!  I’ll be here all week!  Try the veal!  But seriously folks, it appears that the US District court for the Eastern District of Texas has put a stop to all future sales of Microsoft Word until they resolve a pending lawsuit with Canadian developer i4i.  So, should we all start getting ready to rollback to MS Works?

Um… no.  The lawsuit appears to be charging $200M in damages – no small sum – plus another $40M in damages for “Willful Infringement” of i4i’s patents.  The lawsuit centers around the use of XML – a very high-end programming language – integrated into the Microsoft Word program.  i4i is charging that Microsoft used their patented XML Tagging Features without their approval when they released Word 2007 and the brand new “.docx” file format.

Ultimately, what is likely to happen is that Microsoft will pay the $240M in fines with the pocket change in Bill Gates’ couch.  Then, they’ll immediately purchase i4i as a company so that they will have full access to the XML features that Microsoft needs in order to keep churning out Word 2007.  A purchase of a company like i4i would likely cost Microsoft another $200M+, so this little error could cost the company almost half a billion dollars when it’s all said and done.