Alright, at first I wasn't going to say anything because this post is starting to get a little lengthy...

My comment about media exaggeration is correct, they do it all the time in regards to everything, we all know that. I don't consider TS to be a part of it. All TS is doing is post news that is already out there, which is 1 of 2 sources I look at to stay up to date.

It wasn't really (at least I don't think so) Matt's title, that was the title from the original news source. Search it on the internet, every headline is more or less the same.

I apologize if I put something in my comment earlier that was in bad taste, again, TS is 1 of 2 sources I look to for news and updates, and Matt (along with others) are doing an excellent job at it.

Gates purchased QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Sperry/Rand for use with an 8 bit and 16 bit processor. It was originally written as a basic OS for some signaling systems that SR had in the field. They didn't pay much for it but they didn't steal it, either.

As for Apple, Jobs got that for free from Xerox's PARC after taking a tour of the facility and watching how a GUI based computer could work.

Now for the bad reality: Microsoft, the evil giant, employs about 100,000 people world wide. They pay hundreds of millions in payroll and taxes every year and they contribute 10's of millions to charities every year as well. (I don't know the financials of Apple, Inc but they're probably similar, proportionately).

They compete with everyone else and they worked their a$$es off to get where they are. I'm not a big bell ringer for MS but I am a small businessman that knows what it takes to make it in an economy and it's not easy. Someday I might be lucky enough to be in the same position as one of these big players (i'm not holding my breath on that, though). I've seen plenty of companies make out pretty good being purchased by a big machine like MS (and AT&T and IBM, etc)

Well put. Oh the irony.

So, will Microsoft buy i4i ?

Good.... Microsoft's constant ripping off has finally caught up with them.
Too bad Apple can't sue em for ripping off their operating system.

I bet the disctrict court judge uses Microsoft Word....lol...

how about using opeendocument format with openpoffice?

You don't mean to say MS itself IS a progress accelerator and open source supporter, do you?

If .doc and such formats were opened to the world, then OpenOffice would be higher class product, than the "first class MS Office", supporting also all those beloved MS documents format seamlessly. My, would you be then even calling MS Office a "first class product" and cling to it so much?...

So, it is this very "patents and copyrights and intellectual property b... etc" you are referring to , which puts Microsoft products where they are.

And then, all those suits against MS are, in fact, attempts to recover from the giant what it has gained so far by means of its copyright protected products and policies on the market. Just another marketing step, much like those Microsoft itself uses.

there seems to be a kind of glee for MS getting spanked by judges and juries. C'mon, they have paid more tahn a quarter of a BILLION US Dollars for this alleged patent infringement. I am certain that should i4i were to be acquired 2-3 ago, it wouldn't come near this figure-patents, lock, stock and barrel!!
I am not connected to Microsoft in any way nor I like their marketing methods. However, patent disputes are very common and it is not fair for MS to get treated worse exactly because they are who they are. What would be fair would be for the court to award reasonable damages, e.g. 20% more than the royalty income i4i would be expected to receive under normal commercial circumstances. This would achieve three things : (a) punish MS for the infringement (the 20%) (b) compensate i4i and (c) prevent i4i from raising unreasonable demands for licencing the technology to MS, which would only serve to raise the product cost for the consumer.
Anyway, XML formats are not essential for word processing and the lack whereof did not prevent us from writing great prose in the past;-)