This is truly a serious black eye to Fester. As of January 10, 2010, Microsoft can longer sell Word, in its current form, unless it strips out the custom XML editor or licenses technology from i4i, in addition to forking out some chump change.

an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth

It was typical case of Microsoft partnering with a smaller company, lifting its technology without paying for it and acting like arrogant greedy assholes. This is why I’d fire the dude. All that chump change spent on lawyers, court fees, appeals, etc., could have been spent on simply either buying the company or licensing the technology in first place. Now, besides losing a portion of its revenue stream from Word, it loses further good will in financial and business community. And nobody up there in Redmond still gets it. Why does anybody do business with them?