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Rumblings of MS Office for Linux at CeBIT
An anonymous user noted that "ZDNet UK has an article concerning rumors at CeBIT that MS has a team of programmers working on a Linux port of Office. The report quotes a LinuxCare employee, and is probably only slightly more solid than the same rumors we've been hearing for ages now. " Again note, purely speculative rumor. This one comes from Linuxcare's Arthur Tyde.
Read this: Fear And Trembling In Silicon Valley
Do you still want Microsoft and their Office to CONTROL EVERY COMPUTER PLATFORM IN EXISTENCE??
There's evidence to suggest that they control the Mac. How can anybody want them to get equivalent leverage (and ability to decree the killing of competing technology) on Linux? For God's sake, Linux is about the only place left that they don't get to say, "Kill that. We don't like it. Or we'll kill Office for your platform/withhold Windows/lock you out of the market/etc". And people want to hand them that power?
I was just reading this arti cle over at O'Reilly.Linux.com.
ESR says that he has "inside information" from MS about a port of MS Office to Linux. Hmmmmm.... the plot thickens.
Here's the quote: "Raymond: That is not something I feel like I have a good answer to. I am fairly sure that there is already, however, a Linux-portable Office. I have some intelligence from inside Microsoft that strongly suggests that, and it also makes sense for that to exist already if the people at Microsoft are smart enough to see that there's a wreck coming in their operating systems business -- and I think they are that smart."
kuro5hin.org
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
The wv library has working word import capacity right now
The basics of import are completed, i.e. word 95 and word 97 and word 2000 fastsave and fullsave support. Fastsave has always been the bugbear of word importation import, wv is on one level complete. It only requires some minor modifications here and there to complete its work, as abiword gains more features to equal word, then wv can be used to map the word features to the abi ones.
Koffice could also use wv for its word import, I wrote it as a library which should be reasonable easy to use from inside any word processor, the code to use it from inside abiword is pretty straightforward. I'd reccommend a look at it, wv has wvHtml as a standalone app to convert word docs to stylesheet enabled html which (if netscape wasn't so crap as using the data) would give almost identical html layout to the original doc layout
Its not perfect, but its as good in many aspects (or even better in some) as the commercial offerings
C.
I sometimes write stuff
Microsoft is a big corporation and they can afford to blow money working on projects that are more contingency plans that won't see the light of day. Office for Linux is merely an option, and managers are quite possibly seeing how difficult it is to do the port and how well it runs. Not to mention that it might be DOJ fodder.
Microsoft won't do an Office for Linux port until they are seeing steady erosion of the desktop market for Linux. I think Microsoft porting their server software to Linux is a far more likely scenario right now. If Windows 2000 continues to show lackluster performance, that possibility will keep going up. Especially if Linux somehow takes a higher percentage of the server market than Windows, and that could well be within a couple of years.
Of course that would effectively shoot themselves out of the server market, so they're not going to do that until they're ready to surrender. But that is a distinct possibility. Every generation of NT took more and more money to develop and forcing more and more gruesome licensing schemes to compensate and companies are starting to get into this idea of Linux in their servers. Even the popular press says that Linux is great as a server solution, even magazines that get lots of Microsoft funding.
Something to remember is that Microsoft has killed a lot of projects in the past. Bob is the most infamous example but there are other Microsoft projects that also have died. If a piece of software doesn't justify the investment, it dies. If Windows 200X projected sales doesn't make up for the investment in resources, then they'll look for a way to cut their losses. Customers who leave Windows 2000 for Linux are not likely to come back for Windows 200X and the licensing schemes that will be needed to make a profit off of that.
A more sane approach for Microsoft in that scenario is to conceed the server market and port their server software to it, their Active Directory solution et al. Lets Microsoft hop on the Linux bandwagon and take advantage of all the hype. They might try to take over the Linux standard, but I don't think they're going to manage it. There are too many other Linux vendors and if Microsoft comes up with their own standard, everyone will go off and make up their own. Remember MCA versus EISA?
Microsoft will hang onto the client side a lot longer. When that area starts eroding seriously, once again when it is no longer profitable for them to keep producing a new version of Windows, they'll hop on the Linux bandwagon for the desktop and produce a Office for Linux as well as porting all their other desktop application software. But that's four to five years away.
Around that time they'll start producing their own version of WINE for Linux with their claims of full Win32 comptability and make revenues off of legacy applications.
That assumes Microsoft as a single company. If applications and operating systems are broken up, all bets are off. That could be a very likely reason there's a project to do the port now. No one knows how its going to end up and the applications people don't want to be caught with their pants down when they are forced to compete on their own.
But that is just worst case planning here. I think we'll see Microsoft SAMBA long before we see Office for Linux.
It's a pretty well known fact that /most/ of MS's income is from their applications, specfically office, making them only compatible with windows helps keep a monoply status and hence more money...but...and this is a big BUT....someone at MicroSoft sees that Linux is a big up and comer, then perhaps porting to Linux would make good finacial sense, as Linux gains more speed, people would want to use what they're familar with...ie Office....it could actually be a /smart/ life-saving move for Microsoft...but really...do you think anyone there is that far thinking? Hell...next we're hear rumours that the port will be GPL'd :)
Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:
If a man is not a liberal at 25, he has no heart.
If he's not a conservative by 45, he has no brain.
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P eople always seem to think that since Office is available for the Mac, that means it will arrive for Linux. But most companies are standardized on x86 hardware, so they're not going to jump ship to the Mac platform because of Office. However, if office existed for Linux (and not Star Office... No matter what everyone thinks, it's not the same as having the real thing in the minds of many many people. I'm actually one of them) many IS or IT types would be VERY tempted to switch their desktops to Linux...
Office is the "killer app" that windows has and Linux isn't getting any time soon. Regardless as to how anyone tries to justify it, it just isn't worth it for microsoft to allow Office to arrive for Linux. Companies are standardized on Office. If office is only available for Windows, then they're standardized on Windows as well.
Microsoft has stated that their strategy is to make Windows the most compelling platform available... They have no vested intereste in Linux succeeding.
Remember IE? How no company's would use it because it'd lock them into windows? So Microsoft released IE4 for HP/UX, Solaris, and maybe another Unix... Company's then moved to IE... now where's IE4.5 let alone version 5 for any of those platforms
Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?
Because it was dead.
Why would MS port Office to Linux?
To make money. Just like the Mac port. For a while they were supposedly making more money on every Mac sold than on every PC sold.
Also, strategically, the Mac port never did anything to affect their OS dominance, and I don't think they really think Linux will be any more successful on the desktop (where office suites matter) than the Mac. Heck, there's every reason to think Linux is going to be less significant on the desktop than the Mac, which is much more mature and elegant from a typical office and home user standpoint. (Of course they may well be wrong -- free beer in cheap paper cups is hard to resist).
Finally, they can complete the humiliation of their rivals who see Linux as a safe haven from office suite competition.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
WINE's liscense is BSDish, meaning that the source doesn't have to accompany the binaries. So no, Microsoft would not have to release its modifications. And anyway, there's really no reason why they'd have to, since they wouldn't be releasing a modified copy of WINE -- they'd be releasing the binary version of Office that they compiled against a modified copy of WINE that they kept entirely in-house. Remember: Wine isn't just a compatibility layer that will let you run existing win32 binaries -- it's an actual port of the win32 api, meaning that if you have the source to the win32 program (as MS does with Office), then you can compile it against wine and release a truly native Linux program.
:)
As for all these "MS is porting Office to Linux" rumors, it's all old news, since slashdot reported on it 21 minutes from now, right?
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
MS has committed to releasing Office for Mac OS X. I believe the initial versions are merely Carbonized, but in the future, assuming OS X survives, MS will have to replace it with a Cocoa-native port. That means Unix, and once that happens, how hard is it to make a Linux/BSD port?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Get it here and cry.
Anomalous: inconsistent with or deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Anomalous: deviating from what is usual, normal, or expected
Canard: a false or unfounded repor
I don't understand what Microsoft would have to gain by porting Office to Linux. Seems to me they'd just be undermining themselves. Can anyone shed any light on this?
But I have to wonder; if this happens to be a rumor with a grain of truth behind it, perhaps it's an attempt by Microsoft to show that while the OS group may have misbehaved themselves, the MS Office division is committed to cross-platform support, and gee Ms. Reno, don't let a few bad appl... er, vultures in marketing and sales ruin our Technological Innovation (tm).
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Microsoft has done more recent ports of IE to Solaris than that. The newer versions are still very bloated and slow. You are basically right that they basically re-implemented the entire Windows API under Solaris, what they specifically did is use Mainsoft's MainWin product which is a Win32->UNIX porting layer, which basically re-implements all of the Windows stuff under UNIX and is actually based largely on Microsoft's code (under license).
Porting MS-Office wouldn't be that much larger a challenge than IE, given that they have done ports of both to MacOS. I'd guess they would just use MainWin again. However, I don't believe they will do it, for political reasons. I wouldn't be surprised to see them do a port of IE to Linux, especially since I believe that Mainsoft has ported MainWin to Linux.
I think it is is inevitable that Microsoft are working on a port of Office for Linux... however, I think that this is something they will hold back from releasing so as not to assist Linux for the desktop. If Linux does increase significantly on desktop machines they will have to evaluate which is the worst threat to them: the threat to Windows or the threat to Office. When they gauge the time to be right and decide that ignoring Linux is working they will deliver Office in minimal time.
Alternatively, if Linux doesn't make headway on desktop machines the Linux port of Office will be binned.
Microsoft aren't stupid and I can imagine that there are a lot of people inside the company preparing battle plans to combat further Linux encroachment on what they regard as their territory.
What I *really* wonder about is if they are thinking about creating a Linux distro of their own, or indeed a Windows desktop for Linux with Windows GUI and APIs.
For Immediate Release
Today, Microsoft (MSFT) announced the release of MS Office 2007 for the popular Linux operating system.
"Linux has proven to be a very stable operating system, much more so than Windows NT," said Albert Hobrach, Microsoft representative. "We we able to reduce our development time by about 75% because we weren't constantly having to work around bugs in the OS. Expect to see more Microsoft products for Linux in the near future."
When asked to comment, Linus Torvalds said, "Microsoft? Who's that?" He then went back to working on Transmeta's latest secret project, code-named Friday. It is rumored to be an add-on to the Crusoe chip, but nobody knows any more. Torvalds would not comment on the Friday project.
Since the spectacular failure of Windows 2000, when computers world-wide exploded due to a programming mistake that later came to be known as the "W2K bug", Microsoft has been struggling to reestablish itself as a major player in the computer market. This announcement is projected to increase Microsoft sales of software by 100%. When asked to comment on this figure, programmer Andrew Welch said, "Twice nothin' is nothin'!"
In related news, farmers are concerned by increasing reports of winged pigs terrorizing the countryside. "Ya know how sometimes ya'll look up and a bird'll shit right in yer eye?", said agricultural worker Matthew Jones. "Well, ya don't want ta see what a pig'll do to ya. At least we should be grateful the cows ain't flyin' yet." Also, temperatures have been dropping rapidly in the infernal regions, and a major blizzard is expected sometime tonight. When asked to comment, Satan said only, "What the hell?" Reporter Dante Alighieri is on the scene.
Disclaimer: This is a work of parody for humorous purposes. Any resemblance to actual people or companies is entirely intentional.
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The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
Think about it - if they were going to port Microsoft applications to Linux, why wouldn't they start with Internet Explorer, which already has a Solaris port, and just type "make"? Sure, porting from Solaris to Linux could be more difficult than that, but not much, and the biggest difficulty would be the different endian architectures, something they'd have already figured out with the Windows -> Solaris/Sparc port.
Or for that matter, why not port Windows Media Player? They could reuse code from the Linux port of NetShow that got killed a while back.
Hell, while we're on the subject of Unix ports, why did they port IE to Solaris/Sparc and not Solaris/x86?
Simple. Microsoft isn't in business to let it's application development teams build up more competition for it's OS development teams. Solaris/Sparc runs on obscure hardware that NT can't? Fine, give them an IE port and hope that the accelerated death of Netscape will outweigh the few lost sales of NT/x86 workstations. But practically every copy of Solaris/x86 (and Linux) in use means one more Intel system that won't see NT installed, and so no ports for them.
It would be a retarded decision for Microsoft as a whole to spend resources on a project whose net outcome is to make their most dangerous competitor much more viable in a much wider market. In 4 years, when KOffice (and maybe Corel Office, if it ever ships) is kicking ass, then maybe Microsoft will port Office to try and keep marketshare. Even then I doubt it.
Why? Because Office is MS bread and butter in more ways than one. First, it is their principle revenue stream right now and probably will be for quite some time. Also, even though control of the Windows API is how Office became dominant and there is still a symbotic relationship between them, I think it is reasonable to believe Office Upgrades drive Windows upgrades more than vice versa. Hell, I'd argue that Windows upgrades are driven more by Office upgrades than any other factor (with other applications coming in second).
So, MS has two monopolies: OS and Office Suites. The OS monopoly is under attack from multiple directions: Server OSs, the Government, thin clients, computing appliances, freeware OSs. Also, the OS one is much less visible to the majority of end users (tell a secretary in your office she has a choice: move to a new OS, but keep her office suite or move to a new OS, but keep her office suite...see which she chooses). Right now, you aren't loosing yet on Office Suites, but a couple of the groups pinging you on OSs are gearing up for it. They are planning to using this OS diversity against you.
Even MS has limited resources. If moving a small amount of resources from the OS battle can protect you in the office suite battle without noticabily changing the odds in the OS battle, what do you do? You port Office to Linux to keep StarOffice and Corel Office from hitting you on the flank and maintain the stronger standard (Office file formats) that you have.
Hell, even if Windows looses this round of the OS battles to Linux or Mac or Be, this is a good plan. Office will last longer than Windows in that scenario, but provide an in for a Windows counter attack.
Just my $0.02
Herb
Again, feel free to sentence me to death if my questions annoy you. I'll come back in 5 minutes anyway. -Sythi
Why do such a thing? Well
But you know, everything in this whole thread has the whiff of conspiracy theories. Maybe space aliens have disguised themselves as M$ employees leaking bogus rumors, because, well uh, who the hell knows why those space aliens do what they do? Maybe the Microsofties have been the space aliens all along! We need David Duchovney to find out.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind