Walt's Corner

Be careful what you ask for. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon and hope like hell that Microsoft finally gets what it deserves. Of course I’m speaking of its latest bag of hurt that is the Word patent infringement ruling. After years of putting out applications that, for the most part, were straight up theft or at least someone else’s idea, I hope as much as the next person that they reap what they sow.

But let’s walk down that glorious path, shall we? In today’s economy and politically motivated decisions, the clouds have parted and I see a future. A future where Word does indeed get banned. Here’s a quote from eWeek, “But if these efforts fail, even a company of Microsoft’s wealth and resources would be hard-pressed to recoup the potential financial losses and competitive setbacks if it has to keep Word off the market for an extended period.” That’s their opinion and I pretty much subscribe to it. In this future of mine, Microsoft is in deep financial trouble. Word gets pulled. Office has to get repackaged. Competing companies come out and flourish. Microsoft begins to go under. What happens next? Government bail-out.

Don’t think that could happen? Think again. Remember when RIM was playing the patent infringement case? They were on the receiving end of a stay of execution. Why? Because the government would cease to function without the use of their Blackberries. The government was not going to bite the hand that feeds it. What applications are on every government computer? Why, Microsoft Office, of course!

Reason 1 Microsoft will not be too severely punished: Office is on every modern/recent government computer.

Reason 2 Microsoft will not be too severely punished: Even if a court sided against Microsoft, the way the government runs now in the aftermath of this recession, the government would financially bail-out Microsoft from the burden and we would all become stockholders of the biggest software company in the world.