Enjoying your Christmas break? Well this coming New Year; things could get a little hairy around the office for the Americans because believe it or not Microsoft Word is now scheduled to be prohibited from sale beginning January 11, 2010. That’s just couple of weeks away now.

Microsoft CEO - Steve Ballmer

This isn’t a joke, previously in August 2009 Microsoft was being charged for patent violation. They thought they could win the case, but unfortunately they did not win. (Microsoft should learn that no matter how big their company is they still got to play by the rules) Microsoft was indeed in the violation of that patent. It had something to do with XML language created by a company called i4i, but seriously I’m not going to write any more details about this.

Microsoft has promised a fix for its Clients, they are somehow going to reprogram Microsoft Word so that it can become legal again. In the mean time, if your computer hasn’t got Microsoft Word, you should consider installing a copy before January 11, 2010. The sales of Microsoft Office software (which includes Microsoft Word) will be stopped beginning that date until the software giant company found a way to fix it.

If you already owned a copy of Microsoft Word, do not worry, you can still use it since Microsoft has been given the rights to continue to give support on their product.

On the other hand, this is a good news for the competitors like Apple Inc. This is the perfect time to switch Microsoft Word users to similar software like Apple iWork.