Microsoft cites its loss in a patent-infringement case as the reason behind its sudden upgrade push for Office 2003 and Office XP Professional products. Microsoft is pushing customers to upgrade to the latest service packs for Office, but not for the usual security and performance reasons. Ten days ago, Microsoft began notifying its volume-license customers that they should upgrade to the latest service packs for Office in order to comply with a patent-ruling against Microsoft.

"It was recently decided in a court of law that certain portions of code found in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003, Microsoft Office XP Professional and Microsoft Access 2002 infringe a third-party patent. As a result, Microsoft must make available a revised version of these products with the allegedly infringing code replaced," according to the note.

Full story: Microsoft Watch