Microsoft’s silence on the license requirements for Office 2003 and Office 2000 continue.
‘PATENT’ QUESTIONS WITHOUT ANSWERS
Microsoft’s silence on the license requirements for Office 2003 and Office 2000 continue. Their attitude is strange but it’s typical that the company should oblige customers to use a particular version of Office for new installations but not oblige their customers with full information on what they need to do.
There are many permutations and scenarios for installing Office yet Microsoft’s stated position doesn’t cover many legitimate questions.
In this issue we’ll talk about some of these unresolved issues and give our ‘best guess’ as to the answers based on what we know and can infer.
Re-install on same computer with same license key
What about the common situation where you have to re-install Office on the same computer? After all that’s something that Microsoft tech support often recommends but the company refuses to answer the question.
It’s a grey area and I suspect legal teams could argue for hours about whether this is a ‘new’ installation under the terms of the software licence.
You might take the opportunity of re-installing Office to update to the latest release (if only because it might fix whatever problem you’re having). In a company where you need consistent versions across the company you could choose to re-install whatever version of Office the rest of the company uses.
Transfer Office to a new computer with the existing license key
Another grey area though the balance might tip towards this being considered a ‘new’ installation even though you’re using an existing license key.
Again you might decide to use the latest Office anyway.
‘Work at home users’
Microsoft’s large license customers have an option to license Office for use in the homes of their employees. Though Microsoft hasn’t said explicitly, we’d infer that new installations of Office under that scheme will need to be the latest version.
Product Activation will enforce the change?
In theory the product activation technology in Office could be used to enforce the use of the latest versions of Office. After installation Office ‘phones home’ to verify your entitlement to use Office with that product key. It would be possible for Microsoft to refuse activation because you’ve installed an ‘old’ build of Office 2003 or Office 2000.
While this is possible we don’t think Microsoft will do it. It would cause a lot of trouble for customers and raise more concerns about product activation. It is possible that the current activation code can’t display any reason for refusal so you’d have people angry at being refused activation for a legitimate license key.
So we don’t think, and sincerely hope, that product activation won’t be brought into this issue.
Why is a request to upgrade made?
Why is a ‘request’ made to upgrade existing installations of Office made with the notice regarding new installations?
As well as notifying license holders about the requirement to use the latest versions for new installations there is also a ‘request’ to update all Office versions in the organization.
The reason given for the request is consistency across an organization but that’s a decision for the customer to make. Microsoft does not make it clear why consistency of Office version across an enterprise is being requested – it is not something the company has requested in the past. Even if they did think it was a wise move that would be noted in the technical or ‘side’ notes not contained in the formal notice to customers. Microsoft’s normal practice is to ‘recommend’ certain actions as beneficial for the client – the term ‘request’ could be taken as more demanding than a recommendation. The context in which it is given increases the likelihood that the ‘request’ has more of a legal reasoning than the stated one.
As we’ve noted before it’s possible that this ‘request’ element is a consequence of the negotiations with the patent holder or a tactic to reduce the cost of the court case loss.
Microsoft will not even confirm that the ‘request’ is just that and there is no licensing or legal consequences for customers in failing to comply with the request element of Microsoft’s notice to customers.
It’s a tough call for large corporate customers. Microsoft can include the ‘request’ for their own self-serving reasons, safe in the knowledge that their customers, and not Microsoft, will have to bear the cost of compliance.
Microsoft has chosen not to answer these valid queries from customers. This isn’t an acceptable situation with customers obliged to make changes following Microsoft’s legal failure and then the company not fully disclosing the details of how they are affected.
It seems that much of Microsoft’s silence and unexplained ‘request’ is aimed at reducing their liability for the breach of patent. Our informants suggest that Microsoft will have to pay the patent holder based on the number of copies of Office using the ‘stolen’ technology both now and in the future. If Microsoft can convince large license holders to update all their Office deployments (not just the new ones) then they can reduce the amount that might be due. The beauty for Microsoft is that it costs them nothing – the update burden falls on their customers while main benefit is for Microsoft’s bottom line.
Does the update / patch requirement apply to ALL customers?
Yes – while the notice is being sent to larger license holders for Office 2003 and Office 2000 it does apply to all Office customers.
Thankfully for single and small license users much of this is academic. While the Microsoft license requires new installations of Office to use the latest versions there’s no formal enforcement and for many home and small business users the chances of being ‘caught’ is probably tiny. If you need or are more comfortable with your existing version of Office then you might decide to take the view that you should stick with what you know works.
Remember that the change only applies to ‘new’ installations of Office 2003 or Office 2000 – no-one is obliged to update their existing deployments of Office.
Some readers have said that Microsoft should just pay up and not bother customers with this. We can understand the frustration but we don’t know the details of the negotiations between Microsoft and the patent holder. It could be that the amount being asked for is too high or that negotiations are being dragged out. The court case was in the middle of last year but the requirement to use the newer, crippled, version of Office is only recent – presumably much has happened in the meantime. Patent law is extremely complex and evolving, especially when it comes to software and the Internet.
Before you’re too hard on Microsoft, keep in mind the troubles that Blackberry/RIM are in and have a look at James Surowiecki’s interesting look at the idea of ‘patent trolls’.
