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Microsoft Porting Applications To Linux (Really!)
Erbo writes "We've heard the rumors before, more times than we can count, but this time WinInfo claims they're true: Microsoft is working with Mainsoft in Israel and a small French development team to port their apps to Linux, and possibly other Unices. No estimates on availability, of course. Their strategy seems to be to use an "Office for Linux" as a bridge to Windows, similar to Mac Office."
Sure, Microsoft will release Office for GNU/Linux. It will run, but not very well... perhaps even worse than its native environment. And Microsoft will say, "Well, we tried, folks, but apparently Linux isn't ready for the world's most popular productivity suite. But we're real nice fellas, and we're innovative, see? So we'll see what we can do." And a year will pass, and doubt will creep upon the computing world like an ivy, and a few bold columnists will wonder if perhaps this was yet another of Microsoft's failed technology/business (they are one and the same, in Redmond) ventures.
And then, rumours. Rumours are nothing unusual in this industry, but not always something to ignore. A keen ear can almost see the future by keeping abuzz of the Silicon Valley grapevine.
"Did you hear? Microsoft will be releasing a new product soon..." "...supposedly some sort of competition for Apple's Mac OS X, that new Unix-workalike OS which..." "...been making a real comeback, yeah. It's like there's some sorta renaissance in the Unix world. I mean, with OS X, and then..." "...GNU/Linux has been slowly gaining a foothold, too. Remember when Microsoft tried to port..." "...What? You say the new OS won't be Windows? What could possibly..." "...trying to take part of the server market from Sun and IBM. They've got some nerve, after that business with the DoJ."
The rumours continue for another year and a half, and then Microsoft amazes, intrigues, and impresses all by releasing their first non-Windows OS in over a decade: Microsoft Xenix 2005. It's SVR4... embraced and extended, of course. Can run your old NT software in "NT-compatibility mode", but is a full-featured UNIX development and server environment. The MCSEs will rally in their dank little holes ("How dare they expect us to learn a real operating system!"), but their spirits were broken after the Microsoft breakup in 2001, in which Microsoft Office Applications and Microsoft Internet Services were split from the OS division. And so what if the Xenix 2005 feels just a little too much like GNU/Linux? If pressed, Microsoft can just say they used some FreeBSD code... and never have to prove anything else, thanks to their license. Sure, maybe they used a little Linux code (and maybe some Sun code, too; isn't Solaris supposed to be partially open-sourced in the next year? ;), but why should we fight them? They're Microsoft, and we love them.
Microsoft Operating Systems, flanked by its brothers Applications and Internet Services will slowly destroy their compeition, but instead of putting them out of business, they'll absorb them. Of course Microsoft/Oracle10i runs best on Xenix! Ditto with Microsoft EGCS. (Yep, they got FSF too.) And it all performs best on IBMicroSun hardware. And who will stop them? No one. Not the Federal government, who changed the country's name to the United Slaves of Microsoft in 2016. One day, every being on this planet will pay tribute to Wilhelm Gates the XVIII in their own soul. For what is a soul compared to the chance to use Microsoft Xenix 2172, whose paperclip pal gives you your daily schedule with a wry grin? ("10:20 - Act subserviant.") Where do you want to go today, bitch?
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
>>Microsoft Linux 2005?
I've kind of been hoping for this, actually. As bad as their underlying code sucks rocks, even I have to admit that M$ is good at making fancy widgets and glossy GUI's. I'd love to see WinDE on top of a Linux or BSD kernel. Office for Linux would be neat too. I'd probably buy it and give it a shake, if only the $5/CD educational version available through the University (but as someone posted earlier, the FIRST thing I would do is turn of that stupid paperclip).
Do not teach Confucius to write Characters
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
I have been playing around with wine and the latest releases work VERY well with office. Running word, you cannot tell you're not sitting on a windows box.
Unless you look at your uptime, then you'll know you aren't on a WinBlows box.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
*sigh*
First, Ellison didn't dig through trash cans. The private dicks he hired dug through trash cans. Second, he didn't lie about it, so he was honest.
Not that Ellison wouldn't lie. It's just that your example isn't a good one.
Second, Miguel isn't a FUD spreader against KDE. He expresses his honest opinion about KDE. He just doesn't have a good opinion of KDE. (Or, rather, he *does* have a good opinion of KDE; he just thinks he can do better.) Mostly, Gnome folks and KDE folks don't infight. It's the users who do most of the FUDding, without having any idea what they are talking about.
Thirdly, Stallman doesn't say copyrights shouldn't be honored. He does *not* advocate ignoring copyright. He thinks keeping knowledge hidden is ethically wrong; so he advocates using copyright law to keep information from being hidden, through the GPL.
Fourthly, how the *hell* is the GPL a "nazi" license? If you don't care if someone takes your code and makes it proprietary and makes a bundle off your work, don't use it. If you want to guarantee that no-one can profit off your code while keeping knowledge hidden (see the paragraph above), then the GPL is the one for you. It allows freedom of information.
Basically, if you don't mind using proprietary programs, where you don't have access to the source code, then you have no complaints about the GPL, since the GPL gives you *more* rights than a proprietary binary-only program license, without taking away a *single* right a proprietary license grants.
Unless, of course, you don't like the idea of people sharing ideas without making a monetary profit.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Last semester, I was working on a report (in Japanese) for my Japanese class using Word 2000. The cluster machines running Word 2000 with special input method editors had no problem, but my roommate's copy of Word 2000 had some problems. The Unicode characters displayed perfectly, but Word crashed when I wanted to print them. I had to trudge back across campus just to make one minor change and reprint the document.
For more information, click here.
- For any sufficiently popular class of application, free alternatives will be developed.
- At least one free alternative will eventually be "good enough" for the majority of users.
- As application classes mature, it becomes harder and harder for proprietary software developers to find meaningful new features to add; ergo, the free alternatives will always achieve parity with their commercial equivalents.
In the end, proprietary software ceases to have any advantage over free software. While this will probably seldom apply to more specialized software, it will be the rule for general purpose apps. In many cases, we already have parity except for the interface. Lout's typesetting engine is vastly superior to MS Word's engine, but no one has yet written a WYSIWYG front end for it. PostgreSQL and MySQL can outperform flippin' Access, but no one has yet written a RAD tool for them. And Gnumeric is within a hair's breadth of kicking Excel's hairy arse, and can arguably be said to have reached the "good enough" stage. And Evolution will almost certainly blow past Outlook, if you're into that sort of thing.We have a way to go, but MS would have to purchase enough congressmen to outlaw free software to prevent what is otherwise inevitable.
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Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Has anyone thought that this may have nothing at all to do with Office. Maybe it is related to IE, instead.
Why?
Because of desktop Linux? No. I don't really think MS is really serious about this at this point.
Maybe there is something else. . .
Think of all the non-PC devices (webpads, handhelds, etc.) that are running or that will be running Linux. Don't you think it breaks Bill's heart to have all these devices running with out one lick of MS software. With IE for these non-PC platforms, Bill can possibly gain a foothold here and use this to try to hook everyone into some type of Microsoft service.
Ok, so my theory's a little nebulous, but it could happen!
It can only strengthen Linux as a whole. I think there are some persons at M$ that look at Linux as an oppertunity to make money and lot try to take over the world with winblows.
Am I the only one utterly fed up with pompous assholes who think disagreeing with somebody gives them the right to tell moderators how to think and how to act?
Actually, no, you're not.
"I will gladly pay you today, sir, and eat up
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Or how about an opengl screensaver with a 3d paperclip that moves around the screen.. reading quotes from fortune. and using aspell or the like to check the spelling and add a red squiggly line under unknown words. heh. Once in a while through in quotes like, "Microsoft is not a monopoly" and "Everybody loves Microsoft" and put a green squiggly line under the entire quote. :P
In fact, nothing more annoying than receiving a word document. ;-)
Seriously, amen to that... I just send 'em back. Saving them to your home directory, either mounting a windows partition and mv-ing the .doc or ftping them from the server under windows, booting windows, if you've got it, and praying you've got the right version of Word installed is just a little too bothersome to do often.
Happily, I've never worked in a situation where people customarily mailed me .doc files, so I can afford to cop an attitude. My condolences.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Actually you've got a very good point. My BSOD joke was just karma whoring in a big way.
My personal experience with NT over several years is that the BSOD's I've seen always seem to be hardware related, like if I try to access SCSI devices while using DirectCD to write to a CD-R, etc. Now, this is a pretty crappy problem, but it is usually easy to work around.
In fact the only software I generally have to reboot to fix is Explorer (not IE normally, but Explorer itself).
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Hmmm, a test version of a pre-release 2.4 kernel isn't stable? Go figure....
but the Windows operating system has plenty of architectural flaws
I should probably leave this alone, but what do you consider to be Windows' architectural flaws. I can readily agree that Win9X has it's share, but I courious what archetectural issues you have with the NT/2000 kernel? I'm not saying NT is bug free, but I have trouble calling Linux's kernel architecturally better at this point. I don't have a lot of experience with the Linux kernel, but a lot of things seem to be hacked together as it has evolved. Some things I would expect in a well designed kernel are good kernel threads support, the ability to map user memory into kernel space, and a device driver interface. A consistent device driver interface is especially important when the OS is evolving as quickly as Linux is right now. At least it's important to those of us writing the device drivers.
I understand people not liking Windows because of stability problems.
I can understand people not liking it because it's closed source.
I can understand people not liking it because it's sold by Microsoft.
But the architecture of NT is pretty dan impressive.
actually i believe that they were able to move. if you (and i correctly) recall, dante described an image of one head sticking out of the lake of ice that was gnawing on another head. thus, they could at least move their mouths.
(But Microsoft would probably favor it anyway. "Awww, how cute! It's like Windows for Linux users!")
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
Defending their 'freedom to innovate' for so long, it's nice to see they're actually doing something innovative.
It'd be nice to have a modern cross-Win/Mac/Unix office software package (and emacs doesn't count).
I'm looking forward to see what atrocities they try to implement in X11 just to get suchandsuch widget performing in exactly the way they want.
Kevin Fox
Kevin Fox
Totally agree with the comment about Microsoft coders actually knowing how to write stuff outside of the Windows environment.
I got to try Outlook Express for Solaris recently. It did work. But the default window size was too small. Tried resizing it, nada. Can't move it around either.
Yeah, that's functional.
LordP
"Nothing is so smiple that it can't be screwed up."
Nothing is so smiple that it can't be screwed up.
> MS Marketing Team
I initially read this as "MS Targeting Team"
...is there a difference?
I don't imagine Mainsoft would be having as hard a time porting Office as people are making out, not only because the toolkit is good IMHO, but because in my dealings with them they have seemed like a very sharp bunch of people.
... but just look at some of the things that Office can do and anyone who has enough computer know-how will realise that most programs just don't do some of the stuff that Office can do. I'd like to chalk it up to the intelligence and inginuity Microsoft engineers, but that same group of engineers also had their grubby hands on Windows 95 code, so ....
It's been mentioned in other spots but I thought I'd remind people here since this post was moderated so high: Office is a complicated beast.
We aren't talking about 1 program consisting of 300,000 lines of code here. We are talking about a multi-million line gorilla consisting of interconnecting, short-cut using office apps. I have no personal knowledge of the code itself
rLowe
----- rL
I used to be opposed to this whole "software subscription" thing, but I'm having second thoughts. There are some applications I'd buy outright, but when it comes down to it, there are a lot of applications I don't use often enough to warrant replacing with current versions except every 2-3 releases.
Think of it this way, if I use, say, Corel Draw for 20 hours per year @ $5 per hour (I'm just guessing at pricing and billing here), I spend $100 per year on it. If I buy Corel Draw, it might cost me $350 -- I can use it all I want, but I can't afford to replace it when they release the "new" version six months later and stop bugfixing the one I bought. If I replace my copy every two years just to keep pace with bugfixes and OS updates, I'm spending $175 per year -- far more than it would cost me at a "subscription" level where I can always run the most current version.
There's lots of wiggle room here, but it's kind of a win-win for everybody. Corel gets a more stable revenue stream and business from customers they might not get because the one-time purchase price is relatively high. I get access to a current software version without laying out a huge amount of cash all at once.
I'm hoping that the subscription model isn't excessively greedy -- I'd like to see software vendors licensing their applications to lots of ASPs, as its the only way we'll see innovative pricing models. I'd also like to see old versions of applications available for metered usage at 1/2 or less of the current version pricing.
Anyway, I think there's some room to be hopeful here. When I think about the zillion old versions of software that I spent a lot of money on and didn't use much, application renting sounds smart to me. Of course there's still room for the vendors to just rape us, but I don't think that's necessarily a given.
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Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Thanks.
Don't kid yourself, people will still buy copies of MS Office for Linux if it comes out. Corporations that have some employees who use Linux and some who use MS Windows will buy licenses if only to ensure that 1 document format is in use throughout the business.
Besides, as someone pointed out elsewhere, this is probably being done as a hedge against the possibility that the DOJ will succeed in their case against MS and the company WILL be broken up into two competing companies. If that happens, then the applications half of MS will no longer have complete access to the source for the various flavours of Windows. If they do it now, then if they get broken up the applications division is ready to take on the Linux desktop as a market as well. Its an awfully small market now, but if things keep going the way they are at the moment with Linux, it will become a large enough market for MS to want to play in and dominate.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
And I seriously wonder HOW they will do it. I mean.. Writing portable code from day one is ok for most applications, but porting native windows code, with OLE and COM and heavily registry dependant applciations ? Winapi 32 functions typically are not cross platform. If they write some sort of VM-simulation software underneith to make things work, it could end up like Mac Office in it's early days: slow and unrelieable. And then there will be no-one to batter on the table and ask for updates by means of a court settlement.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
I don't think it's that they want the money from the small linux desktop share. They might just want to get their foot in the door now. That way, if linux ever does become popular on the desktop, microsoft will have their office product ready to sell to people. And by then, they will have had time to work out the bugs (at least the huge, glaring ones). I would really like to see microsoft go through with this. I love the unix environment, but I'd like to do more with my os than web browsing and coding. Face it, if you want to see linux get popular on the desktop, microsoft is going to have to support it (at least somewhat). Now if only linux games were more common...
With a file disk quota of 5 megs standard on most machines
/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin, etc., but it is not necessarily a requirement that root privelages be required to do this install.
Most software does NOT require being "run" as root, which is what I think the previous poster was saying. If a program run's "suid root", then it has the ability to crash the system, corrupt memory, and destroy your hardware forever! Most programs do not require this
Oh really? Well, I don't know what a file disk quota is, but if you are talking about disk quota's, then there is no standard disk quota size. I have never heard of a standard quota size before.
Most software installed on a system will probably want to be in a common place on the system, such as
In the article there is this statement:
"The complicated undertaking, which has been a work in progress for over a year, requires the companies to map native Win32 API calls to the Linux equivalents so that Windows applications will run normally in that environment."
This would be a fantastic advance (if the documentation was released) and would aid in many other Windows applications being ported to Linux. On this project, I hope Microsoft succeeds!
-er
"Jesus saves, but everyone else in a 10 foot radius takes full damage from the fireball."
Excellent point. Explorer is probably _the_ buggiest and generally most poorly designed piece of software MS makes. It's ironic that it's the one we all use the most. It's part of the OS the way IE is, underneath, except for using certain hardware, I've found NT is pretty hard to crash, and since a lot of the moron hardware vendors _still_ don't have Win2K drivers, I'm still using NT 4.0 most of the time.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
wrighty.
how difficult will it be to port the Blue Screen of Death?
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
I guess I'm a little confused about your statement.
So a few years ago MS was going to port apps to javaStation but because it sucked so bad they didn't, and so because they didn't and they blamed the javaStation OS, which by your own admission sucked, then they are spreading FUD.And so now that MS has said they will port apps to *nix your afraid of what, exactly? That they might tell the truth about Linux like they did about javastation in 96? So what happened with Apple exactly, did MS decide that it didn't suck and so they had to port there apps over anyway? Did you ever think Linux might not suck and MS might do the same thing.
Guess I'm just not following the *nix train of thought very well.
"...*nix programmer shoots self in foot, blames Microsoft."
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Only one problem with this assumption, from my understanding and statements from friends who are Mac users IE, OUTLOOK, and OFFICE are all better on the Mac than on Windows. Additionally if you go through MSDN sometime you'll see quite a few articles that are critical of the MS product that they are educating people on. For example roaming through the CSS HTML stuff you will find comments about how IE doesn't render certain things correctly or that it's buggy, or you might see a comment that the feature is really only in testing and not ready for primetime.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Microsoft Credo: Even real programmers can't always get security right, so let's not even bother trying. Instead, distract users by designing new, worthless, innovative features. Or, if that proves too difficult (thinking is hard!!), we'll buy some for you.
And the customer's reaction: Hmmm, Explorer still crashes just like it did in Windows 98. So much for NT being so stable and... hey, look! The Start Menu has a new fading effect! That's so fucking cool! I just love Windows 2000!
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
probably not what you want."
Why not? regulation is not the same thing as control of the market is it. The government mandates auto safety, airline safety, elevator safety, food safety and zillions of other things so that corporations can't kill, maim, or enslave as many people as they want to. Why is the software industy so special that it alone should be free from government regulation?
A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
I don't see anything contradictory to that. FOr every microsoft products, the first few versions sucks and get better as they learn their mistakes. That's one thing about microsoft that you have to respect. They might see it as a learning experience to their eventual .net strategy. With the .net strategy, the OS hardlys matter anymore. So it is a good time to start building up the user base of MS offices users in linux. It also fixed nicely in their often used strategy of making announcement of up coming products so that users will wait for them rather than going to the competitors which is staroffice in this case. If staroffice manages to take off, what are the chance of their .net strategy succeeding??
ok, got me there. I guess is was xenix then. I just remember MS buying a unix flavor and cutting a deal to do so.
"We obviously need a new moderation category: (-1, Woo-fucking-hoo)" --Mr. AC
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
Both of which could be applied to Linux. Good point.
Wah!
And that damn new "Geek Groupie" (i.e., want to appear smart but nothing intelligent to say) messageboard just pisses me off. I stopped reading a week after they started that crap. I quickly got annoyed with scrolling down and seeing insightful comments such as "Wow, geeks are so cool! Lnuix (whatever) rools! =) P.S. - Pitr is awesome!" and then about a thousand "I agree!!!!" replies. Sure, I didn't have to scroll down... but it's like a car crash. A '79 Chevy Stupidity colliding with a '92 Mitsubishi Poseur.
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
If the split up happens, the M$ Applications groups might want to consider a port.
Or not even a port, but a desktop replacement for X. Instead of startx, imagine cough...
startM$
Maybe I'm just thinking windows 3.1.
The question therefore would be how Microsoft could change Linux sufficiently so that MS Office would only run on their version.
Fortunately, for Linuxers, they can't. Any changes that they make to the kernel or any of the system libraries would require that they also release source code to their changes. Sure, they would almost certainly need to create their own libraries for things like win32 and such, but that would just mean that the Linuxer that wanted to run Office on his Debian GNU/Linux box would need to copy Office and the other necessary libs over to his Debian box.
I suppose that it is theoretically possible that they could change the license to MS Office for Linux so that it was only legal to run it on MS Linux, but that wouldn't make it any less technically possible to run MS Office for Linux on your distribution of choice, it would only make it illegal to do so.
It goes without saying that Microsoft won't release MS Office under the GPL, but that doesn't mean that it won't work under any Linux distribution with the right set of libraries. Heck, my guess is that within a week MS Office for Linux would run on FreeBSD.
Of course, this is all just fun and games. Microsoft isn't going to release MS Office for Linux, if they are behind this particular story (which is doubtful) they are simply doing it to cut down industry enthusiasm for Sun's new GPLed StarOffice. An announcement like this is just the thing to freeze deployment of StarOffice on Linux. After all, why waste time deploying StarOffice on your Linux boxes when "in just a bit" you can have MS Office?
Not that I would personally rate this particular story very high above a net hoax. One anonymous developer somewhere in Israel does not convince me that Microsoft has seen the light. Especially since this move would almost certainly seriously undercut Microsofts hopes for Windows 2000 on everyone's desktop.
to
"All of thier Mac versions (of Office) come out two years before the Windows version"
Im no MS fan. Office is not for me. I have used Office 97(PC) Office 98(Mac) and Office 2000(PC) and of the three Office 98 (Mac) is the best. It had Office 2000 features before Windows and all Windows did was catch up (note I speak of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint) to the Mac version. I've never understood this. Personally I'm willing to bet ole Stevie is holding those patents up in ole' Bills face saying "Either pay us the 6 Billion in royalities you owe us, or Make Office not suck"
Burn Hollywood Burn
It seems even they have felt the Wrath Of The GNU already...
See, I never used GnuCash nor Quicken, Money or any of the like, I'm only pointing out the existence of a GPL clone. Is GnuCash worth the bandwidth?
Imagine, that YOU have on hands an offer to join a working force for a product that allow to run MS products on *NIX platforms. Do you accept the job offer?
I doubt you all, en masse, deny to take such a job position.
I doubt you won't to defend with all your heart what you do. Not only because you get paid for it.
So no matters what you talking here about. Do it.
-augur
I have been playing around with wine and the latest releases work VERY well with office. Running word, you cannot tell you're not sitting on a windows box. Excel also works great with a few minor cosmetic problems. Powerpoint still needs a bit of work, but its getting REALLY close.
If wine becomes 100% effective for Office, then there may ben no real reason to hold out for a port, which probably won't occur anytime in the near future anyways.
BTW, this was tested with office 97, not 2k. I haven't tried it with 2k yet.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
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All generalizations are false.
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I like to watch.
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the WinInfo article says: "Mainsoft's research and development team, located in Lod, Israeli, is working with Microsoft employees from Redmond and a small group of developers from France, [where Mainsoft originated]." it took me about 2 minutes to find out: the mainsoft.fr has nothing to do with mainsoft.com. The French site claims: they are not in any manner related to the other Mainsoft, editor of the software MainWin. Although MainSoft.com does have an office in Lod, their august 14 pr only comments about porting Internet Explorer and other technologies to UNIX platforms. no word about Linux or Office. nice try though
Desktop publishing (PageMaker, CorelDraw). These are the only apps I miss from Winblows
Contrary to popular Slashdot-er belief, God probably doesn't have to many programmers at all, judging by His distinct lack of needing any. And if He did have any programmers, they would most likely be programmers from Microsoft than UNIX programmers because of the fact that there are probably more dead former-Microsofties than dead Linux people, for various reasons including the annual Microsoft in-house execution cycle of any employee who showed traitorous intentions over the past year, and the increased risk of random violence against Microsoft-people that are committed by people who were fed up with what they call monopolistic practices, but not all of the accusations are even true, and anyway, most people would do the exact same thing in Bill Gates' place. Except for the fact that most people would make a point of being better dressed than Bill Gates and the off-putting eyesores-of-what-he-calls-sweaters that he always wears when people see him. He probably dons them to try to hide his pathetically deformed torso. Or perhaps the hideous scar from where Satan removed his heart.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Lets be honest - It was Unix coders who INVENTED bloat. EMACS stood for Eight Megs and Constant swapping when Eight Megs was a lot of memory (Now stands for Eighty Megs And....)
This does actually bring up a problem of what to call it when Eighty megs is considered a tiny amount of memory. Eats Memory and Churns Swapfiles would be a good future proof version.
Funny you mention Afterstep.
Have you ever heard of LiteStep? Its a small replacement for the current for the windows graphical shell... Gee you cant customize it tho..
When people post without really understanding the parts of an operating system they are critisizing its pretty sad dont you think?
The threat for people who just do simple things who check their email is so much more than laughable, these are the people who are gonna be happy with a web appliance that will run.. a non MS Operating system most likely.
Not the desktop market perse but.. Its not an MS Operating system, its all coming and rabid zealots like you who run around spouting this utter bullshit are just gonna piss people off.
Jeremy
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance
And how exactly would that be done? "Yes, the XMMS folks wouldn't stop development of their audio player, so we had no choice but to terminate development of MS Office for Linux. I hope it's obvious that this is the fault of the XMMS development team for not knuchkling under."
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Install shield like app comes up and asks you for a "Typical" install which erases linux and installs Windoze first as a "support" utility :)
Wine runs it better i just tried it
15-50% CPU
weeeeeee.............
I tried out IE under a number of different Window Managers (I normally cycle through about a half-dozen; one per week), and under most it has a number of problems displaying.
According to some of the others here at work, when Solaris IE is displayed by X on NT, the whole border disappears...
And I still haven't managed to get OE to install.
T. M. Pederson
"...and so the moral of the story is: Always Make Backups."
T. M. Pederson
"Lies, Damn Lies, and Documentation"
Because Office relies on having a lot of services around that Linux doesn't have. The same reason that WINE doesn't really exist yet. If those services were around in Linux then WINE and Office would both be simple (relatively) porting jobs.
For those of you who weren't around, the Microsoft apps were real Macintosh apps as was the eventual Lotus Jazz. The pfs: apps were text based console apps running in a GUI window. Lotus Jazz was an extremely limited all-in-one app that was a dismal failure and didn't end up shipping until a year late by which time Excel shipped.
1)Why didn't they say they were going to do this *during* the trial? "See,we're not a big,mean,monopoly! We're going to release a product for the competitor's OS!"
2)How much will it cost? One of the big turnoffs about MS products is that their prices are extreemly high. Will they try to price MS Office for Linux at a lower cost to attract more customers?
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Thus Spake ComradePenguin
Let's say Office does legitimize Linux in some people's minds (rather like hood ornaments legitimizing cars, but never mind that). Great. So P more people move to Linux than would have, and C more companies move to support it than would have. Now let's say Microsoft yanks Office... whom do we lose? P/X people and C/Y companies, where both X and Y > 1.
This degree of blackmail might not work on RMS types but there is a level where it is frightening.
In fact, it presumably wouldn't work on anyone who presently develops for Linux, since they already see fit to do so without Microsoft's badge of legitimacy. Maybe it'd intimidate some half-assed opportunisic newcomers; who cares? Maybe it could even work on the likes of Red Hat... that won't darken my day.
I sympathize with you; MS certainly hasn't been good to the Apple community. But we have nothing to fear. There's no central point to attack, no board of directors to intimidate, no stockholders to panic. Unless MS decides to send hit men after Linux, Alan & Co., I'd say there's not that much they can do.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Alighieri. And yes, Lucifer is standing in the ice up to his chest, torturing Judas, Brutus and Cassius. La Divina Commedia, Inferno, chapter XXXIV.
"It is more complicated than you think" (The Eighth Networking Truth from RFC 1925)
For one thing, I'd love to see a Linux port of Internet Explorer. Slag on MS all you want; MSIE is faster than Netscape, more stable than Netscape, and (for now at least) a hell of a lot more stable than Mozilla.
So as something to hold us 'till Mozilla makes a final release, I think it oculd actually be a good thing...
I suppose I'll get flamed or modreated as "Troll" for saying this....well, whatever.
OK, that's serious fault one of your premise.
Now on to point two. If Microsoft made a deal for Apple to kill off QuickTime in exchange for developing new versions of Office, how come QuickTime is still around? And please don't claim that Microsoft doesn't know how to write a contract - that wouldn't even begin to pass any laughability test.
Where did you come up with this one and does anyone who buys this actually claim they've bother thinking?
Yeah I once loved Netscape like most everyone did.. But the fact is it is dead. Hell the current Mozilla sucks to no end and makes me depressed to browse the web on linux. I use linux and I have to use Netscape 4.7x because I have NO real alternative. &trade doesn't even work in that... the fonts are disgusting.. of course there are work arounds.. but it is just OLD technology. In Mozilla I can't even copy text from it. I can't drag things to the personal tool bar. It will never be a good product and I am tired of waiting. When I use IE I am delighted. It is a very good product and I really think it is the best browser available. The one on my mac is even better than the windows version. I would absolutely LOVE IE to be available to Linux users. I am tired of browsing with a dinosaur.
They might be able to convince a company or two to do some baby knifing, causing some funding to get cut. Overall though, most of the companies that are behind this baby are really fucking pissed at Microsoft and will no doubt take immense personal pleasure in seeing Microsoft try to face off the 10,000 pound angry baby that they want to create.
In other words, they've got very little influence with anyone on those dev teams.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Used to use it till the company I work for forced us onto the hell that is Lotus Notes. (For those of you that have never seen it, imagine an app that not only threw out all the standard interface elements and keyboard shortcuts, but also didn't bother to build new ones in to make it useable.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The complicated undertaking, which has been a work in progress for over a year, requires the companies to map native Win32 API calls to the Linux equivalents so that Windows applications will run normally in that environment
So yes, they do need access to the Windows source. I would be willing to wager a guess that Mainsoft is not actually doing the porting of Office, or any other specific Microsoft app, however I do not know. But what the article does make clear is that Mainsoft is in the process of creating a framework that can be used to port ANY Windows application to Linux. Kind of like Wine, but instead of running Win32 binaries, you would recompile your Win32 code against these new libraries under a Linux compiler.
This article says absolutely nothing about whether Microsoft is or is not corrupt, and it says even less about whether or not they should be broken up.
If you DO want to get conspiracy theory, though, think of it this way: Mainsoft is wanting to write this framework so they approach Microsoft for the license for the Windows sourcecode. Microsoft realizes that they this could make or break them, so they enter a partnership so that they can keep this project in check. I'm not saying that is what is happening, but I'm sure you conspiracy theorists can see it happening.
Gotta love the vi users. They really demand user-friendliness from their software! And those high-tech features -- you can scroll up and down! Microsoft's got a lot of catching up to do...
"Now," you say, "why would Microsoft want to port Office to Linux? Isn't Linux their enemy?"
I'm surprised no one has brought this up before -it's blatantly obvious. Microsoft wants to bring blue screens to Linux. Of course because Linux is so omni-configurable, power users will be able to recompile the kernel to change the color of said blue screens. Coolfish
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Actually, you're mixing two different Apple/Microsoft eras. The Apple lawsuit (which Microsoft won) was over in the early 90s.
6. Microsoft.Net. This is another way to sell monthly licenses. ...
Actually the .NET stuff has virtually nothing to do with renting software. That, for some reason, is what some reporters thought it was going to be and they didn't understand what .net was really about so they kept on saying it.
They could lock you down to one distro if that's the only one the software worked on!
Just because MS releases their own distro, adhereing properly to the GPL doesn't mean they would GPL Office.
This is all a contrived scenario, but Ive seen MS do worse things.
Rick
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Given that there's never, yet, been a stable Application Binary Interface on Linux, you really don't have to do anything. It's already a total mess for any commercial operator to release binary-only applications for Linux. And it's a matter of pride for certain elements of the Linux community to keep it that way.
Mainsoft has been working on Windows-to-Unix solutions for some time
And its "solutions" sucked all that time even more than Windows.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
developing mantainance code in NT is pain (PErl vs. Win32/MFC.
Have you ever tried WSH (Windows Scripting Host) alongside ADSI 2.5? Everybody thinks its a W2K tech, but it works like a charm on NT, and there's little you can not control through a snippet of JavaScript. It's a free download too :-)
Agree with all the other things you write, though.
Black holes are where God divided by zero
The standard pattern of Linux game development seems to be that someone sees a game, ports it and then decides that it needs more features. A stunning example is Rocks 'n' Diamonds, which appears to have started off as a port of Boulderdash...
Anyway, what are we actually talking about? Oh, yes, Office for Linux... Isn't KOffice supposed to be that?
My copy of MS Word 2000 turned 34.6KB of plain text into a 108KB file. I guess that isn't as bad as a ~7KB file turning into a 100KB file, but it's still kind of weird. My 108KB file can be compressed to 12KB, so that ain't bad.
You just described, almost to a tee, the GNU strategy with the bash shell (it covertly encourages coders to write shell scripts incompatible with /bin/sh) and the GNU C compiler (it neglects to properly flag non-ANSI code, even when run with -pedantic to detect them). Yep.
Good old embrace-and-extend GNU.
I think you're a little confused. They didn't
use millions of lines of code for any one
application; they used millions of lines of code
just to create the windows emulation layer,
which they're going to heap the applications
on top of, no doubt followed by a bunch of other
useless crap just to get their mediocre software
to run. In regard to the other guy's comments
about win98 being less bloated than Linux:
that's exactly why we don't need Linux+X+Gnome+KDE+Mozilla+WindowsEmulationLayer+W
Yes, you're right. They've started to suss that StarOffice is threatening their golden cow, MS Office, and so they're trying to stop the bleedoff of customers.
All I can say is, whatever they release, it won't be Open Source, it will just run on Linux. The two are not the same. You can easily develop apps, and even publish part of the API, while keeping the internals closed source.
And they will keep it closed source. Sure, they might open source some printer drivers or some minor thing, but the crown jewels will still be kept deep within the caverns of the beast, guarded by the Kerboros(TM,MSFT) dog, off limits to all who do not praise Bill G to the highest.
Will in Seattle
So who are you to tell me what I can and cannot say, while criticizing me for doing the same?
Did you even *read* the article?
Mainsoft has been working on Windows-to-Unix solutions for some time, and the company has worked with Microsoft in the past, porting Microsoft's DCOM technology to Unix.
Did you go to Mainsoft's web site?
That should answer your question...
--
Install the Outloos Web Access component. It works fine in Netscape for Linux
More to the point, the suddenly mixed signals would cause a significant amount of confusion in the marketplace. They'd be artifically splitting the market between radically different OSes and would run the risk of increeasing the flow of customers in the UNIX direction. They'd rapidly fall behind the mainline kernel in terms of features, and they'd antagonize a significant amount of the community. They don't need any of that sort of trouble, especially with the fed ready to crawl up their ass with a microscope. And if they make one little mistake in the context of dealing with the GPL, the community would no doubt demand that they open up their entire source tree. They don't want to risk that. No one wants to risk that.
Moreover they'd be running the risk of their customers running mainline Linux apps on their systems. You can't make a system completely incompatable overnight or no one would use it. So some customers might try gnome out and like it. Then when the next service pack breaks it, those customers might move to a more "standard" Linux. They don't want to risk that either.
Finally there's the question of the current court decision against them. If the supreme court upholds that, there'll be some question as to what the software side (Which will be the threat) will be able to do in the operating system arena. I'm guessing, nothing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
honesty.
I read an article on the Wall Street Journal about how Bill Gates lied on testimony. It isn't about digging dirt up on people, or lying to the public (which is really nothing new). This is about lying on sworn testimony.
If you can't trust someone on sworn testimony, how can you trust them at all?
honesty.
I read an article on the Wall Street Journal about how Bill Gates lied on testimony. It isn't about digging dirt up on people, or lying to the public (which is really nothing new). This is about lying on sworn testimony.
If you can't trust someone on sworn testimony, how can you trust them at all?
D'ya think they'll gpl it? lololol......... awx
Feel that power? That's mah MOUSING FINGER
Especially when people find out that OutLook for Linux must be run as root.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
I think in the outer areas of the ice, they were only in ice up to their heads. In the inner areas, they were completely encased. I think.
With Satan, of course, stuck in the center up to his waist, chewing on three people in particular. Lovely. :-)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
They did a half-assed port of Word and Excel which were as buggy as hell and then never released any bug-fixes or updates claiming that OS/2 is to blame for all the bugs.
They will do the same to Linux - do a really buggy port which would probably need 500+MB of RAM to run and then claim that it's the limitatons of the OS.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
--
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
Why then does IE crash and crash explorer.exe which requiring a reboot. A buggy driver or app should not bring down the system, and perhaps MS would like to address the stability issue before everything else. NT/2000 is loads better than 9x, but that's hardly a good comparison.
There are already many open source office apps out there.
Most likely, they will be better than MS Office.
But MS Office is bad because it's proprietary software, made by Microsoft to get dominance!
I think many newbies will use MS Office and say the open source office suites sucks, only BECAUSE MS Office is made by Microsoft!
This could be a bad thing for the open source movement.
I know a lot of people who always say "MS is the best" while they think the BSODs and virusses in Windows are caused by the computer and totally ignor the fact that Windows is an inferior operating system!
You're right, they ARE good at creating smoov GUIs. And provided that they don't do TOO bad a job of coding it, it might be something utterly wonderful for the Linux community.
::shudder::
Assuming it was open-source. Would it have to be? No, right?
Despite this, I still feel....that there's just something unholy about Microsoft Linux. Ugh.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
Gnu's Not Unix
Remember?
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
I worked on the IE port to Sun Solaris about 2 years ago for MS as a contractor. I worked primarily on the java VM although I made changes to the mainsoft libraries also. We used MainSoft (the isreali guys and pakistan guys were there). At that time they were planning on porting outlook.
Well, I just looked at the binaries and shared libraries and stuff on IE 5.0 for HP-UX, and I didn't see any references to CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT, but I did find lots and lots of debug symbols for what seem to be Win32 API calls. Meaning, of course, that Microsoft merely ported some portion of the Win32 API to UNIX.
My journal has hot
Seriously, MS porting Office to Linux? Is there any way to permanently break Linux binary compatibility in FreeBSD?
*Sigh* probably not, it works too damn good. Perhaps it is time to migrate to BeOS.
Now, if only BeOS had LyX...
-Peter
. Penguins Surely Ca
I would not wholly agree with your statement on stability, I have a Win2000 server (fresh) installation on standard hardware that does a memory dump and reboot if anything is copied to floppy (yes even if done in a dos window).
I do not consider writing stable floppy drivers unreasonable.
I do find it unreasonable that an error here should bring down the whole machine.
Slashdot Beta should die a painful death.
---------///----------
All generalizations are false.
--
I like to watch.
She's a fuckin' dyke. Nuf said.
--
303infinity Rocks, buy their CD's.
This may be a defensive move by Microsoft. That's my theory. At the moment Linux has a lot of momentum behind it. This may or may not translate to a major share of the desktop market in the future. In Linux succeeds, they'll have a product ready. They may lose share in the OS market but hopefully (for them) they'll be able to hold onto their Office suite dominance. Microsoft is spending a relatively small amount of money to cover all the bases, so that no matter what happens, they'll still be in a good position to make lots of money. Does anybody remember when Wordperfect was the dominant word processor? Then everyone switched to Windows, and Wordperfect didn't have a product ready? Microsoft is making sure a similar scenario cannot happen to them.
Oh yeah, I should point out, to be on topic, that IE 5.0 Unix has this statement in the copyright: "Unix version contains code from Mainsoft"
:)
My journal has hot
It is pretty normal for M$ to pre-announce their software to whet the appetites of those IT managers and prevent them from going out and buying the competition.
Hang on......I am going to have to think twice before i "buy" that office suite for linux.....hmmm......
"I have been around the world and found that only stupid people are breeding" -- Harvey Danger
I guess the real reason why M$ wants to port Office to *NIX is to stop Wine. For most people, what makes Wine interesting is the ability to run Office on Linux/BSD (roughly now, possibly spotlessly in the future). Once a native port is out, why bother with Wine anymore? Keep in mind that Wine is the single biggest threat to M$'s domination. It's the only existing piece of software that undermines the ``Applications Barrier to Entry'', to say it in Judge Jackson's words. Once M$ loses that, they're just another SW company.
Mainsoft have had a "wine-like" framework for porting Windows apps to Unix for years. In spite of its existence, almost all applications need some work on top of the basic use of that package, and it is this that takes all the development time, as the semantics of certain Win32 calls are very hard to reproduce on Unix. This presumably is what they are doing with Office just now.
From what I here, a great deal of code in the Office apps is specific to office, and not available to other apps, simply because its not OS functionality, but office specific functionality.
Incidentally: Mainsoft is an NT source licensee. Given that MS may not be reluctant to show them office source as well.
I didn't mean that, FreeBSD and MacOS X aren't competing. However, even though MacOS X is based on FreeBSD, and the changes they put in are OSS, the two are incompatible. That's what would happen if MS decided to "embrace and extend" Linux. Linux wouldn't be taken over, it would just lose relevance. People would program for the new MS-Linux, MS would have a super-stable new platform, and outside the free-software/dedicated OSS people community, Linux would lose relevance. Any apps written for this new MS-Linux wouldn't run on regular Linux, thus MS will have taken a challenger (Linux), embraced it, extended it, and killed (effectivly, imagine Linux's position 3 or 4 years ago) it.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I was referring to NT 4. I haven't had enough experience with Win2k since none of the moron hardware people have drivers for it (like HP for the HP Photo Scanner).
You would think after 2 years + of betas and being out for 6 months people could support a new OS.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
One guy on our java vm team was a linux guy. He was anxious then to port to linux. Knowing this particular individual, he probably already has it running at home (better than the sun version). I haven't even checked to see if MS is officially trying to dev for linux - I'm just reminiscing out loud...
I hate to point out the obvious, but this (anti-trust) is probably the only reason they bother to port Office to MacOS.
After all, Apple only had 11% of the US Market in its heyday. I suspect it's somewhere near that now, but I don't know for certain. Heck, it may have even surpassed it with Apple's latest rash of cheaper-than-usual computers and brilliant ad campaign. MS Office is more useful on MacOS than it ever has been in the past (It only blows up once a week or so, requiring the ubiquitous re-install) and very interoperable with the Windows version.
Bringing office to Linux, BSD, or even Solaris would be a brilliant manouver for Microsoft. A large percentage of Microsoft's Windows-using userbase is unregistered, but they still count towards the percentage of the market that Microsoft controls. Even if people do not pay for MS Office on linux, it will further increase the Office installed base (minutely, percentage-wise) and quickly own the entire "market" for office suites in general. This is Microsoft's chance to control the office suite market on every major operating system in widespread use today.
Back to my original point; It can be argued that Microsoft is keeping Apple alive, if not by spending good portions of money on them, then by porting Office to Macintosh. It is a very Office-centric world we live in at this point, and if you don't have complete control over office documents, you're in trouble. Microsoft feeds this by bringing out new versions of Office with new file formats. As long as Apple is alive, then Microsoft can be said to have a competitor.
I don't doubt for a second that Microsoft could crush Apple. I just think they now know better, and will merely keep them on a leash for the rest of eternity.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Indeed, I recall an article on the MS developers thing about how in fact, yes, they ported a lot of the win32 api to unix for the IE on Solaris thing. It was really a pitiful disturbing thing, I think. Unfortunately, the article is not there anymore. I believe I have a copy saved somewhere however. It was sort of interesting.
Juln
A buggy driver or app should not bring down the system
Sorry to break this to you, but i can write (or modify) a Linux driver, compile it in, and have it crash the system wonderfully just as well.
I don't know how much you know about Operating Systems, but it's all to do with memory segmentation (Or lack thereof), and CPU privilage levels (Again, lack of). Neither NT nor Linux (On x86) uses either of these mechanisms, which mean that driver code and kernel code share the same memory space, and run at the same CPU level. This is why a bad driver can kill your kernel, and take down your system.
Syllable : It's an Operating System
I absolutely agree, I was being a tad unfair with my ROI figures. :) We'll see if this linux thing pans out, my gut feeling is that it would just be rejected by the community, but there are a number of people who strongly feel that they just wants "what is best". I suppose there are some ways that visual studio is better than ppp. :)
Pax -- Ob
Wrong! Go to mainsoft's webpage. On the fron they have a news bit about Microsoft. In that page they talk about the lib they're making for unix, and it says "including Linux".
Dan.
--
Mainsoft MainWin Product and Professional Services to Be Used by Microsoft To Port Internet Explorer Technologies to UNIX
That's not news (they've been doing it for 2 years), and it certainly isn't a confirmation of the rumor -- it's a clarification (probably specifically addressed at Slashdot). No mention of MS Office, no mention of Linux.
Hopefully enough folks will see this to calm the fires, but it's slashdot and it's probably too late.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Hm, sort of like CygWin, you mean.
BH
Fools! They laughed at me at the Sorbonne...!
Konqueror, the KDE web browser, is almost ready now. I've been using it for a few weeks and it is standards-compliant and supports whatever JVM you give it. It's still a bit flaky, but not as much as NS4.7. Mozilla is also starting to look good, but still doesn't support Java on Linux. If you can do without Javascript try galeon which is built using the Mozilla rendering engine, and finally there's nautilus which is still not finished but supports all the things you want.
7%? Microsoft can get a better IRR than this by changing toilet paper venders.
But more appropriately, they can get a better return by going to a the market. They would be nuts for settling for something so low.
Now every company will of course have their own strategy (and MS is notorious for optimizing on things like market share instead of pi), but I would assume that MS wouldn't venture in unless they could expect an aggregate 20% IRR (including crossover benefits from other platforms/products).
Pax -- Ob
Office is a *huge* reason why MS virtually has a monopoly on the workplace workstations. It has become the standard suite that is used just about everywhere. Why? because that's what all the new employees will be comfortable with - they used it in training or in high school, etc.
If MS ported Office to Linux, they would be destroying this little empire they've so deviously created which ensures Windows' marketshare.
Look out honey, 'cause I'm using technology; Ain't got time to make no apology
As it has been said before, Netscape have not had enough resources to compete effectively with a monopoly aggressively defending it's marketing position.
I think Microsoft is worryed for the future of Ms.Office and believe they can use it's current popularity amoung busness types to curve intrest amoung NON-busness types in develuping office like pacages.
With Star Office and Gnome Foundation Microsoft is posably worryed about thies getting to far along.
They are posably confused. They believe the demand for Office style applications will stall out once Microsoft Office arrives. If anything it will only increase it.
I don't believe they see themselfs stopping Star or Gnome but rather preventing any future effors.
KDE Office, Star Office and Gnome Foundation represent a trend.
Making an operating system is a major effort. We have Linux...
Making powerful 3D games a massive effort...
There are some efforts to produce 3D FPS type games for Linux in open source...
Making a group of office tools.. the kind that ran on the Apple ][.... is really not that hard.
Microsoft Office is Microsofts hold on some users....
Microsoft dosn't want to see to many open source office type efforts...
It's not just what they'll see on Linux that worrys them....
It's the Windows and Mac ports....
Gnome Foundation and KDE Office may never see a Windows or Mac version....
but if enough open source office pacages are made... one will.... and THAT will compleate head to head with Microsoft office....
If someone can get open source out there and prove to the avrage busness man that open source is good.... We'll win a major battle against Microsoft..
From there it's the slippery slope to open source...
I don't actually exist.
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Head and shoulders is maybe going a few dozen tads too far. But Office2000 isn't bad. OTOH the only part of Office I use (rarely) is Outlook, because of the stupid extensions to MAPI that Exchange server has.
WP Office 2000 or StarOffice can do more or less the same for you as MS Office can. Maybe not in exactly the same way, but with the same results anyway. Apart from MS' proprietory stuff, eg. Exchange Server more complicated functions, such as the calender.
Why not? Anyone can put together a distribution. MS sure as heck could spare a few score people to pull together MSLinux. Yeah, they'd have to live with the restrictions the GPL imposes... so what? RedHat, Caldrea, and the like seem to be making a go of it.
.plan = NULL;
So they have to make it freely available... and your point would be? They already overcharge on their OS sales by around 500%. So, let's say $2 to press a CD, $3 for packaging and simple manuals, and, oh, $100 for a 5-incident support contract. Sound familiar? MS already makes a habit out of charging for support; this would allow them to really turn it into a profit center.
Actually the only thing that they would really need to do is release a disk containing the GPL'd sowftare, that can be redistrubuted. Any MS Linux2050 (asumeing that it get done) could be as propriatry as they want, all they have to do is include any binaries / librarys that are linked to stuff that does NOT REQUIRE the GPL to be viriied down through any software linking to it, and viawalla(?sp?) we can have MS-XWindows2050, includes whatever they want, and all they need include is a freely distibutable disk of ALL of the GPL stuff they used.
I will be interested to see if they can (do) pull of a decent office suite for linux, hell even IE, i mean IE 5.0 on the Mac is sweet, as far as browsers go, and more stable than the windows one. But i think MS's biggest problem is not so much that they write commercial sowftare, but they WAY they write and market it?
.sig =
Do the following really mean anything? SCSA MCP CCSA CCNA
--I'm not actually after an answer!
>No companies will move people over en-masse to something like StarOffice because work would essentially *stop* as people adjusted to it from MS Office.
This will happen anyway... you are moving from Windows to Linux. The move from Ms Office to Star Office is minnor it's the move to Linux that will slow things down...
>I just can't quite figure it out... assuming they actually release it and its not full of bugs, whats the downside here?
We are refering to Microsoft here... They have a really bad track record for bugs.
But let's assume... The question is why...
Microsoft has been pritty hostile to Linux over the years. Not supprising really when you rember Linux users are activly hostile to Microsoft. Why should Microsoft bother making anything for Linux?
Ms Office isn't something I'd want to see ported to Linux.. There are allready a few good open source office pacages and chances are good more will come...
I don't actually exist.
The port of IE to Solaris was only done to satisfy formal requirements that some institutions have, that the programs they depend on should be available on Open Systems etc.
It's similar to NT being POSIX compliant, but in such a way that it's of no use. IE port to Solaris was purely for formal reasons.
A port of Office to Linux, if it's true, would not be I assume. So it could either be
- a real effort, which might result in a useful port
- or just an attempt to show how bad Linux is since comparing Office running on Linux is terrible when compared to the Windows version
What's to say that MS won't release their own version of Linux in which most of it is under the GPL, however, the MS Linux distro has non-GPL'ed libraries which would be required for MSOffice f/Linux to run?
the infidels overlooked this item when I submitted it 3 months ago, after meeting with the head of Mainsoft at a convention in Tel-Aviv.
They sell their product, for absurd sum. I have the NDA/developers kit use agreement on disk, and without looking at it, they wanted 20 grand for its use.
at that time, they showed IE5 and all the components of office 2k on linux. it was exciting and sickening at the same time.
A host is a host from coast to coast
but no one uses a host that's close
moderators, with all the stupid people's comments saying "oh no, this is contradictory to the .NET plan, it can't be real"
if you'd just view the website www.mainsoft.com, and see for yourself (I spoke with the head of their company for proof) you'd know that these comments are NOT Score: 5 Insightful, but rather, Ignorant for not looking up the facts.
DUH.
A host is a host from coast to coast
but no one uses a host that's close
I don't believe MacOffice is an entry point to windows. Microsoft has been making software for the mac forever. Microsoft Word was the dominant wp for the macintosh while wordperfect was still ruling the pcs. They have always had a seperate team of developers working on some high quality Mac applications. Whatever their motivation, Microsoft has always supported apple. It's a huge company, and can be good and bad at the same time.
This project sound remarkably like WABI and WINE, two projects (one commercial, one open source) that were meant to duplicate the Win APIs well enough to allow applications written for them to run on other systems.
This was attempted back in the late 80's and early 90's by several companies, including a few that I didn't mention above. (I was on the WABI project and most of the founders of the company who started it are still working for Sun.)
This is not the same, unfortunately, as actually porting the applications. Because the Win APIs cover everything from painting the screen to dealing with devices, this kind of work is much more like emulating an O/S than like true porting.
Also, if you've seen how Win applications deal with their environment (most of them were very poor neighbors, system-wise), you would probably agree that since they were never built to be ported to other O/S's, most of them would be a real bear to try to move.
I don't want to be pessimistic, but until and unless Microsoft assigns its own army of coders (instead of just licensing source to other people), I give this project relatively low odds for success.
From Microsoft's side, it's a no-lose. Without substantially damaging their core O/S, they get a shot at having someone else do the heavy lifting, plus -- because they'd be under license agreement to MS -- MS could always yank back on them if things get "out of hand." In the likely case that nothing comes of it, MS at least gets to pocket some licensing fees. A reasonably clever move for them, but one I'm sure won't be popular on /.
Check out my current client: hireability.com
But Sun doesn't have a pay-for version on their own operating system that they're trying to steer everyone onto, thus winning both more sales of their app, *and* more sales of their os. (Not that I'm saying that that's what MS are doing, but that was the original poster's theme)
Of course, were StarOffice a commercial product on Solaris, (and Solaris have 80-90% of the market) it would be a different story...
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
This is why I don't put much store in corporate announcements of strategic partnerships blah blah open source blah blah.
Corporate support for their own products dries up when the MS cannibals start beating their tom-toms because it relies on prevailing optimism about the product's future. How much can we expect the companys jumping on the open source bandwagon to stick with somebody else's open source project when it looks like the going might get rough?
With open source this strategy doesn't work. Like a hardy weed it isn't to choosy about its environment, it isn't dependent upon a single energy source. It can use general optimism as fuel for growth but it can equally well survive on stubborness, well nursed grudges, or the simple joy of hacking to survive to fight another day.
Personally, I don't think that the Linux MS office product is really seriously meant to see the light of day. It may be a skunkworks type project, or it may be meant to spread FUD.
The idea that it will be a bridge product away from Linux is misguided for two reasons. First, it only makes sense to build bridges to products whose market share is stagnant or which are shriking -- if their growth is very strong it will just encourage people to use the bridge the wrong way. Also the proposition that "Office is better on Windows" will move people away from Linux is very dicey; by the time they are ready to ship something there will be several very nice free office suites for Linux. People could just as well conclude that office isn't as good as the competition.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why are you installing bad drivers and bad hardware? Use some common sense, please.
Oh wait, you work at a school. That explains alot.
I was going for humor.. no, I don't think people who buy Microsoft products aren't as bad as child mosletors! I have a Linux box, but I haven't turned it on for a few months. But with the Linux Zealoutry (new word for me, well new usage) that abounds on Slashdot, I could see how you might think I was serious!
If MS were developping a ".net" client for Linux, they would not need to put all this effort working with Mainsoft to try and do the port. Considering the ".net" is still in development, they would likely be able to bypass all the junk of hacking into the Windows API and just code a parallel one for linux simultaneously.
So because of this, it's probably not likely that's their immidiate plans. I think micros~1 is probably attempting to make Linux look bad after they fail in doing the port.
Didn't Corel use wine to port their photopaint software to linux? I know photopaint is dependent on wine. Maybe Microsoft will take this approach.
My guess is that they'll buy out VMWare and bundle it with a preinstalled Office2k disk image.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The idea of "network effects" creating a de facto monopoly for Microsoft is one that economists such as Hal Varian try to teach us. It seems that no matter if GNU/Linux or another UNIX is techically superior, Microsoft as a monopolist hogs market share.
This is interesting in light of a recent report from China at Salon magazine. Even though Linux is free and the government officially supports it, Microsoft still has a huge market share in China. There might be a couple of reasons for this. One is that "everybody else uses Microsoft" and the network effects become predominant. Another is that the pirates actually make money marketing copies of Microsoft products, even though the price is very cheap--they don't make money marketing Linux, it seems.
So there is a puzzling problem here: nobody can make and sell better software than Microsoft's, and even stealing it helps Microsoft by promoting their market share, because of the network effects.
Consequently, Microsoft has no incentive to open source code, to port to non-Microsoft platforms, or to spend money to increase market share at all, since they own the market already.
Therefore, the only way Microsoft would port to Linux any applications would be if it thought it could make a little money in a new market, similar to the way it writes applications for Apple computers. And it would not hurt if a small Israeli company would do all the work and take the risks for the big company, which can then come in and pick up the marbles whenever it wants to.
The result--short of an enforced breakup of the company by the courts--seems to me bad in any case for GNU/Linux and Free Software. The dominance of this big company with closed, proprietary code and environments, would be harmful to the movement to empower users and small companies. It would just be another dinosaur that squashes new growth by thrashing around adding features and diseases. There is no chance for Microsoft to learn this lesson unless some asteroid like a Supreme Court decision lands on the back of this monster.
Meanwhile, the people who correspond with you think you are a moron, since your computer can't read business-standard attachments.
The main impediment to *nix at this point is that the browsers suck. The office apps suck, too. I don't like outlook, but how could you even cite pine as competition? Pine is crap!
I don't believe this story, but it would be a freakin' blessing from on high if IE was ported to any unix in an up-to-date, high-quality form. IE is about 10,000 times better than any other browser, including Mozilla, Netscape, Opera, and the texties. I haven't used Konqueror yet, but I'd be damn surprised if it was nearly as stable, fast, and compatible as IE.
Sure, when I'm at work, windows needs to be rebooted every 2-3 days, but IE has only crashed about 6 times in the past three months. When I'm at home or school running a unix (solaris or FreeBSD) netscape crashes several times a day. Some pages it won't even read without crashing, so I end up using w3m. That's what originally brought me over to IE. IE/Solaris does suck compared to IE/Win or IE/Mac, but it's pretty good in a lot of ways compared to any version of Netscape or Mozilla. Allow me to point out that I haven't used Mozilla since Milestone 15, I think, maybe 16, but definitely not the latest milestone build.
jeb.
Planning is on course, captian! Don't download GNOME, we'll sell you the trash you're used to! More FUD as usual.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't following your reasoning. In fact, it seems that you've just given the most compelling reason I've seen so far for MS to port Office to Linux - if most of their revenue will be derived from subscriptions, the OS becomes less important.
bwaaaaaaaaahahahahahaha.... halarious. did you think of that all by yourself? genius.
Please name a group messaging function that can't be done with Outlook and Exchange (outside of full cross-platform stuff).
HPUX.
I've got it - it's ok if you happen to want to display it on the HP console - but crashes if you sent it to a remote X display.
--
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
The DOJ.
If you look at IE 5.5, they don't seem to care much of what anyone else might think of them. The latest version of the Internet Explorer adds tons of proprietary stuff to HTML and they don't really support the existing standards. I'm not sure how much is left to see on any other browser of a page that was designed for IE 5.5, but it can't be a lot. And you know that people do stupid things like designing for a specific version of a specific browser.
Endianness is the question of looking at the way the CPU stores values.
..
For example.. the hex number 0x23BC
on an x86 based system which uses the "little endian" format, it would be stored in memory as BC23, however, on a machine running "big endian" format, it would be stored in memory as 23BC.
There's also the issue of little/big endian down to the bit (rather than the byte).. however, it is a non issue with the current CPU's.
It is a new concept for Microsoft. :) It's obvious they haven't gotten it yet. But Microsoft clearly said that they were doing this (porting apps to Linux) solely to attract Linux users to Windows 2000. I, however, think it wass have the opposite effect.
-Brentuse VMWARE!!! i don't want this at all to sound like a plug, but i have to.My company has the Exchange/Outlook blah blah standard too as well as all this MS office crap. Well my boss discovered VMWare and shortly after that three linux boxes showed up with VMWare on them and the bill was sent to our IT department. However, you need a pretty decent machine to run this (remember, you ARE running TWO operating systems at once) but it's a great alternative to the win98 box in all the other cubes...
Silly slashdot, sigs are for kids!
has anybody directed you away from 'snotmail' in the process?
Well, yes, there are downsides to everything.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Well the story said it was true in the first line, so it must be, right?
There's lots of reason to do this as a contingency plan for MS. An interesting reason to leak the news is that its FUD that might cause the big players supporting linux to back off. Its in their interest to spread this rumour, whether or not the project is actually being run by a couple of coop students.
Linux on the desktop makes a lot of sense for supported business users who barely understand how to install something in windows, and so don't.
MS Office.net haveing a linux client available would be pretty big in letting them gouge everyone's money though. Only way it can charge its megabucks and still compete with staroffice.
Obviously MS has recognized that they can't kill Linux using their typical methods. They're either trying to infiltrate and destroy once they get their grubby hands in there (remember how much they helped out with Java?), or they truly feel that Linux will be a threat to them as a Desktop OS soon and they are trying to move their MS Office dominance over to a new platform. ~ They just don't get it though... the whole purpose of running Linux is because MS has abused their customers to the point that they feel they need an alternative. ~ If you feel you need to have MS Office compatibility, and run Linux for stability then go buy Corel's WordPerfect Office Suite. If you do more in your business than type letters to grandma you'll appreciate having WP over MS Word anyway. ~
~Bout Time for another tea party.®~
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Yes... smart for them... stupid for Linux users to use it. We need to continue working on our own products, because as soon as MS Word for Linux is accepted on the Linux desktop and development on other alternatives stops, Microsoft will pull the plug on the project and say "Oops. Looks like you've got no Word Processor. Here's a Windows 2001 CD. Better load it up cause we're the only game in town." ~
~Bout Time for another tea party.®~
The 7% is only for advertising. So if they're going to launch a new Money 2000 ad campaign in Kansas, they want to know they'll make a 7% ROI before they even start designing it.
It's a bit different, though, when you write applications. A well established company can't make a lot of money on something that hasn't shipped yet. So I'm sure the ROI standards for software in the Microsoft world are a bit higher. It's expensive to create new things and not so expensive to put new features on old things.
Where they really excell is in gaining marketshare for strategic placements of products. They know their target audience before a product ships, so they know how to maximize it. They wouldn't port apps to Linux if it was done without considering the Linux users -- who tend to be more compu-savy than the ordinary Win98 user.
by porting some of their apps over to linux, isn't that just going to make it easier for windows users to make the decision to change over to linux?
I think that I covered that. MS would almost certainly have their own non-GPLed libraries. However, one would only have to copy those to your distribution of choice and you would be off and running.
Technically it wouldn't even be much of a feat. Heck, Linux has been running random SCO binaries for years. Running Linux binaries is a piece of cake (provided that the proper libraries could be copied from the MS Linux CD).
Now, there very well could be legal ramifications should Microsoft license MS Office (and it's closed libs) in an unfriendly matter, but that is a political rather than technical question.
I saw over at Geeknik.net that Microsoft is looking for a Linux Product Manager, and it is listed on their website. Check it out here. Waiting on Microsoft Linux v1.0. :)
Hmmm... I agree with the guy who's tag line says: a moderation "Insightful" says more about the moderator than the poster. :)
My journal has hot
Microsoft can't freely hack Mac OS...
My journal has hot
"Anyone who tries to get you to try Word documents isn't really your friend."
um, geeks don't really do things for the sake of what people will think of it. you're new to this i guess.
If Microsoft just wanted to run their apps, why not put some weight into the WINE project? If WINE was kept up-to-date, all Microsoft apps (and other Win32 apps as well) would run on Linux.
Only problem is that they would have to give away all those allegeded secret system calls. If Office uses as much of the OS as the rumor has it, I have a hard time believing they would even try.
To be honest, it would be a LOT more cost-effective for them to rewrite from scratch. MS - fire up GLADE and get cracking!
Stop the brainwash
But Mainsoft technology was used in the ports of IE that i have seen under Solaris.
The solaris ports look suprisingly close to the Windows alternatives, but under the sun box i have tried it on, there were frequent graphical errors.
Nonethelss, mainsoft has tools to port Windows solutions to Unix. Under the mainstream MS apps though, i'd imagine they would have to add the advanced API calls to their tools.
This will be interesting.
I found that statement confusing as well. The Mac version of Office is a much different animal than its Windows counterpart. They share some code, but not nearly as much as they used to. The Mac version is coded by a separate team and is written with what would now be considered the Classic Mac OS APIs and not Win32 ones.
A Linux port of Office might be closer to a Win32 port because of the shared processor architecture (I seriously doubt there will be a non-x86 version; nobody else understands that Linux != x86, why should Microsoft?) but it would still be a Linux application. Unless they take the WordPerfect route (Win32 APIs running under WINE, IIRC)...
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
The article mentioned that they were having problems WRT the port to Linux. Having done only very rudimentary programming in the Unix environment, I was wondering if anyone could clear up for me exactly what sort of problems could be incurred with a port of this sort.
If the port is successful, what differences would there be between a Linux/general Unix version of Office and the Windows variant? Would there be a difference in look and feel, or would there be some difference in functionality?
You are a curious species.
knee-jerk?
(from the article)
The complicated undertaking, which has been a work in progress for over a year
I'm sure they'll provide a helpful animated Penguin (or maybe a gnome, heh-heh) to make your linux box look so much more cute...just shows how friendly they are to Linux users, you know.
"Their strategy seems to be to use an "Office for Linux" as a bridge to Windows, similar to Mac Office." How does Microsoft plan to convert all of us linux users back to Windows just by releasing an "Office for Linux?" Having "Office for Linux" is just more reason for me to kiss my Win98 partition goodbye.
Microsoft would be better off porting solotair to linux, that'd really reel them in. (Remember when greg went to solotair rehab?) I don't know about all you linux zealots out there, but come on, MS solotair is one killer app that we've been missing for a LONG time! ;)
Will Office for Linux automagically remove any instances of Star Office?
--Dave
If this report is true, then I think this strategy could really backfire on Microsoft. It's more likely that people will use this as an exit point from Windows to Linux. After all, there's probably quite a few potential Linux users who would switch in a heartbeat, but hesitate because the Office suite on Windows is more productive and more polished. Now, with the option of running Word, Excel, or Outlook on Linux, that objection goes away. (And that's my honest opinion, really: their Office suite is probably the best one out there, but the Windows operating system has plenty of architectural flaws.)
At least it looks like they're operating and planning as two separate companies now. Maybe they think they're going to lose the DOJ case.
Well, if this is true, it's certainly a good thing to bring Linux to the masses, but what will happen with Linux now? M$ Linux? DirectLin*X? I mean, if Microsoft starts to port their progs to Linux we'll soon have a lot of insecure boxes around (maybe even filled with M$' random-crash DLL's :). They should better program those in a higher-standard than those Windows' progs...
Assuming it's true...
What are the applcations they are porting?
Why are they porting these apps to Linux?
Kind of strange to see this news after Microsoft's .Net idea as announced by BillG.
You could get a lot of good PR out of porting a single app to the linux platform and therefore perhaps dodge the anti-trust bullet. "See, we are good guys after all, we have our most popular app on our biggest rivel operating system. Now please dismiss the case and let us rape and pillage like we want to." Hopefully, the world will not be deceived.
I highly reccomend you check out mainsoft's webpage.
They have tools that could make Linux/Nonx86 MS apps a reality. Just look at IE for the Sparc/Solaris!
I really don't think we have to worry that much... Dan
isomerica.net | Foonetic IRC
good , maybe when i send you a word doc you can open it
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
>Great, now Linux software is going to become bloated.
:P
.~.
/V\
// \\
/( )\
Obviously you've never used Gnome, KDE or Netscape...
--K
Goin' for the flamebait!
8=^`=`^=D
The general concept is: they get you to install Office on your current equipment/OS, you get used to it, then a new version comes out and all your Windows friends are upgrading. You can't upgrade because your version is still several months down the road. You're looking to upgrade your equipment by this time anyway, so you buy a PC with Windows and the latest version of Office.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
Even the samurai
have teddy bears,
and even the teddy bears
get drunk
Adler
Everybody denies I am a genius--but nobody ever called me one!
http://www.mainsoft.com/press/pr-mplayer.html
I get their newsletter, they're porting a whole bunch of IE based stuff to Solaris. I really doubt they'll be porting anything to Linux any time soon though. Especially considering the free OS of choice is redmond is FreeBSD... Linux is PR poison to them because of the competition hype, FreeBSD has stayed in the background and makes no bones about trying to compete with NT. They're in different markets...
this just doesn't make any sense to me. Microsoft, the champions of proprietary code, releasing software for Linux. Wouldn't this move kill their business? Why would anyone pay for Office if they could get if for free? MS Office is one reason a lot of people stay with Windows.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
If it's true, this is a very smart move on Microsoft's part. They've left Linux to its own devices for some time now, and the lack of an office suite has been one of the biggest shortcomings of linux as an office desktop.
But now that viable linux Office suites are coming into their own, and the lack of one won't hold linux back much longer, they can jump in with MSFT Office and claim a big marketshare of office suite installations on Linux.
Hell, if they port DCOM and a bunch of apps that use it, then they can run with the 'it works better on Windows' strategy that they have used with Apple.
Plus, when you've got a few billion in cash, it's not a bad idea to have a few products in your back pocket waiting for hte right time to release.
Steve[emil:~]$ rpm -q -i MSOffice
/usr/bin/msoffice
/usr/bin/msoffice
Name : MSOffice Relocations: (not relocateable)
Version : 2005 Vendor: Microsoft, Corp.
Release : 86253 Build Date: Tue 07 Mar 2000 12:15:39 PM CET
Install date: Mon 03 Jul 2005 Build Host: porky.devel.microsoft.com
Group : Applications/Office Source RPM: MSOffice-2005-86253.src.rpm
Size : 753947212 License: Commercial Vaporware
Packager : Microsoft, Corp. http://www.microsoft.com
Summary : *THE* Office-Solution, you can not live without
Description :
Microsoft Office provides a complete office solution which suits
all and every [35 pages deleted]
[emil:~]$ rpm -q -l MSOffice
/usr/bin/msoffice
/usr/doc/msoffice-2005-86253/eula.txt
/usr/doc/msoffice-2005-86253/msoffice.doc
[emil:~]$ ls -l
-r-s--x-wx 1 root root 753483726 Jul 3 2005
Personally, I would like to see a version of Internet Explorer on Linux, especially if it had some sort of open source policy (which I DON'T expect). Netscape crashes like MAD on my system. And, apparently I'm not the only one to have such problems. IE just seems like a great browser to me. I think it would be a great boost to Linux.
To put a sign on this bridge, just (1) make the windows version much much better and powerful than the linux version. (2) Send out more service pack to fix more windows bugs than Linux bugs. (3) Enchanced documents created in the windows version cannot be opened by the linux version.
Here here. I've always said that IE is the one that's been innovating. Netscape has been in code limbo since 4.5.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Are you sure their job is to port MS apps? The way I read it, they're basically re-developing WINE, only with non-disclosure agreements... not specifically porting Office/IE/etc.
Wow, that would seem to be WINE's goal as well.
Anyone else read this interpretation?
Well, actually you'll need two. One for the .DOC files, and the other one to hold the program that reads and writes them.
Like all the security issues with BeOS? Or the fact that Chorus OS is just so highly insecure they decided to use it for nation-wide telecom?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It's obvious. People won't switch OS's unless all their data still works. Microsoft only makes MS Office for the Mac, because it allows poeple to in the future, take that data with them when they finally upgrade to Windows 2000. If MS makes Office for Linux, the reason they are doing that is because they concede that people *will* be using Linux on the desktop. Office just allows Linux users to then migrate back to Windows 2000 effortlessly. Office for Linux is just a way for MS to rein back in their marketshare to Windows again.
-BrentNerd.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
This move by M$ is similar to the way that a parasite invades a host (no pun). The parasite sees an opening, the smallest chink in the armor and moves in slowly at first, ie HIV. Invading only a few cells at a time converting those cells into factories manufacturing the needed resources to wage battle on the host, eventually overwhelming it.
Spagetti code is the same way, invading a *nix box in as a small insignificant application. Once a small ground has been gained it uses a small library to begin creating it's ultimate weapon, the DLL. Once one DLL has been created the end is nigh, for we have no cure for the DLL. After some time all DLL's begin to work on the ultimate DLL, kernel32.dll. If kernel32.dll gets created, all is lost, on the next reboot you will see the dreaded Windows splash screen and the little welcome to Windows box that doesn't have the clear check box on the first load. My friends you have reached the end of the road, ext2 no longer exists on your system.
To quote Capt. Picard "The line must be drawn here...." Fight the DLL plague.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
They are discussing a cartoon strip, in which one of the characters ported Outlook to Linux in order to destroy Linux with VBS-based worms.
We are an Outlook shop here, but I have no problem reading mail with Netscape on my Linux box.
The last thing we need in Linux (and other Unices) is Microsoft apps.
There are so many other decent Office Suites out there for Linux and when Microsoft comes in, it can only be bad news.
Newcomers to Linux are going to use MS-Office. Microsoft will find a way to break the law and make Linux its own. Maybe buy RedHat to gain market share and have a working distribution?
I know that people are saying this can't happen, but I'm betting something horrible dealing with MS and Linux will happen. Don't moderate this message down, I'm not trolling, I'm pointing out a possibility. And one that I think is a strong possibility.
Either way, they're going to gain market share in Linux, whether we like it or not. I won't be surprised if within the next 2 years slashdot will have stories that deal with disappointing Microsoft-Linux solutions. It's gonna happen people, brace for impact.
Oh yes, and if we can get a thread started here, I'll be happy to discuss it...
would MS ever GPL "Office for Linux"? not a chance in hell...
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
They'll port Office to Linux. Then, when it doesn't sell well (I mean, c'mon, how many Linux users do you know will *really* want Office on Linux enough to pay for it?) they'll say, "see, all of this 'Linux on the Desktop' talk was a bunch of hooey" (yes, in fact they will use the word "hooey").
At that point all of the ZDNet authors will have articles like "Linux is Dead!" and "If open source is so good, how come Microsoft couldn't get Office to sell?" and "Capitalism Beats Communism!".
Or, maybe I'm just making all this up.
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
that maybe ms office is a good software package, and that microsoft is merely doing this because some people WANT their product?
strange concept huh
At this very moment, a SkiDoo dealer is packing up for his new position as VP of Marketing to Hell.
At this very moment, pigs are growing wings.
At this very moment... Ah, who cares. I don't want that damned paperclip on my Linux box.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Although the fact that Office doesn't crash the entire system might be impressive, Microsoft could use this in another way. Just imagine, every time someone calls tech support to complain about MS Office for Linux crashing, the drones could tell them that it's a "known issue", caused by the instability of the Linux OS. The natural work-around, of course, would be to "upgrade" to Windows.
If this does come to pass, don't mock it. Embrace it! Why? It'll bring more folks to Linux if they know that Office is available... Sure, there's already a slew of office apps for Linux, but there's generally a gripe or two about all of them. Not like Office itself is any better - but when people hear that it is available, they'll at least give Linux a try.
From there, they can make their own decisions about whether or not to use a Microsoft product again... ;>
You have all heard the paraphrasing:
First they laugh at Linux...
I thought that the fighting stage began some time ago...
It sure looks to me like we (*nix/open source community) are beginning to win. While the article claims that MS is using this to move people *FROM* linux *TO* windows, and not as a "Oh my god, what if we loose the OS war?"... Come on...
I don't know ANYONE that has gone from Linux to move on towards Windows. I sure do know a whole bunch of people who are going the other way however.
Lets see what happens in round two... When this software gets released. Would it not be ironic if MS Office for Linux was terribly unstable/slow because of its design around proprietary MS APIs?
Imagine, MS loosing its main cash cow (Office, not any version of windows) because it did not run on the OS of choice? (dreaming of a Linux future)
I actually would NOT like to see this happen, I think that competition is good, and I hope Star Office/ WP suite/MS Office all start competing.
Still, if it bombs, I won't be one of the people crying over it either...
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
so, i guess using that analogy, Steve Jobs has won?
seems Linus has a standard of victory that differs from the rest of us.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
MS doesn't want what little there is of a Linux desktop market share.
Sure, Linux kicks ass on the server side. But aside from loving geeks who devote all their CPU and HD space to Linux, do you know a lot of people who actually think, 'Well, I'd get Windows, but Linux is so much *better* for desktop applications'?
Well, do you?
Linux is still catching up on Windows on the GUI and desktop side. Just look at the Holy Grail of Linux-related GUIs: 'We'll make it as nice-looking as MS'. As long as Linux is running after MS and Windows, they'll never be a threat.
Seriously, who would MS try to convince, here? If people are using Linux as a desktop, then there's something else aside from convenience and wide-ranging applications that they're interested in. Stability? Perhaps. But everybody else still figures stability is a small price to pay for prettiness, especially if autosave is on.
Sorry. MS isn't porting anything to Linux because, let's face it, on the desktop side it's so little of a threat it's laughable.
I really can't imagine anyone who uses Linux for Office-type apps running a pig like this. The point of running Linux as a desktop replacement is to *get away* from MS. Will MS be using it as an entry point to Windows? Perhaps. I run Macs at home, and I use AppleWorks on them. Office for Mac opens a firehose full of system extensions, presumably to deal with all those proprietary system calls. Installing a theoretical MS Office RPM on Linux will probably include a similar firehose of mslibc files. StarOffice might not be as feature-rich (neither is AppleWorks), but I don't need "features" that allow some student with 5 minutes on his hands to infect the known world with a worm. This is just MS Hubris again. I just hope no one falls for it this time.
Do not touch -Willie
In some recent work I've been doing with putting Powerpoint shows online, I've found that IE is very friendly with the Office suite apps(viewing ppt or excel documents from within the browser, for example), and Netscape can have considerable trouble. Might this change with a Linux port?
(I don't know how many Linux users use IE as a browser...is there a Linux version, or does one have to use a Win emulator?)
-J
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Lets keep that API moving around so that their developers feel like drunks walking on bowlingballs.
This is one of Microsoft's classic plays. When they see something that they think might threaten them, they either make an announcement or "leak" information regarding some great new MS Vaporware that's coming up. The idea is to "freeze" the marketplace, and get customers to avoid buying or adopting the competing technology until MS has its own crappy version in "barely usable" mode.
This is clearly a response to the Gnome Foundation announcements. The future of non-Microsoft desktops suddenly got a whole lot brighter this week. Microsoft must do everything it can to steer people away from this up-and-coming technology. If they can get people to say to themselves "I'll just wait for MS Office to arrive before I try Linux" then they've succeeded.
Still, even if it's true, I can't see how it'd be very good if they're using MainWin (basically the equivalent of WineLib) to do the port. While the entire Gnome Foundation initiative is centering around CORBA and the Bonobo framework, a ported MS Office will still be using a ported DCOM. Furthermore, it'll look and feel like a Windows app, right around the same time that Linux apps are starting to take on a more unified look and feel. It'll only talk to itself. In other words, MS Office will feel as isolationist and foreign in the future standardized Gnome desktop as the current version of StarOffice feels in the current Linux desktop. Who wants that? More importantly, who wants that and at a cost of $500?
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The difficulty microsoft will have is keeping their windows customers from dumping windows.
There are two reasons I use windows, Office and games.
There is one reason my employer uses windows, and it's not games.
Nothing more annoying than receiving a word document in pine.
... to the SUNny storm coming...
Great, now Linux software is going to become bloated.
Only if you buy these Microsoft applications. The free GPL applications won't be affected.
Oh, and let's not forget that this might open Linux to the ILOVEYOU VB viruses.
Only if you use these for-purchase Microsoft products. The standard Linux applications won't be affected.
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
Well, I love the admission that the article makes. I mean, my last time programming was assembly language on an Amiga 1000. But even with my woefully outdated programming skills, it's painfully obvious that M$ apps have had an interface to the OS advantage over everyone else.
Why should Windows source code be required to port Office (let alone write it)? Corel certainly didn't get Windows source code to write WordPerfect 8.
But the process is even more complex than it sounds, since most Microsoft applications--especially those in the Office suite--use a number of proprietary interfaces, and each application requires specific workarounds.
Mainsoft has access to the Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000 source code, a necessity for the work it is doing.
(If M$ wasn't using their market dominance unfairly, wouldn't porting Office require only Office source code, not Windows source code?)
If this article is true, it's just a far more blatant piece of proof that Microsoft is corrupt, and really has to be broken into an OS division, distinct and different from their internet and applications businesses.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
When has there ever been something not true on the internet? Come on, if you can't believe everything on Slashdot, what the hell can you believe?
-B
I thought it was a pretty good port. If you don't like IE, then you're obviously not going to like the port.
I find it faster than Netscape on Solaris, and it crashes less (eg almost never). It also has a more polished feel than Netscape.
Now the linux comunity can join in all the great VB virus/scripts!
Microsoft usually comes out with these "we'll have an application in this space real soon, check out our vapor" whenever they are afraid a competitor may move into that space and become dominant.. They do this in hopes that people who traditionally have been microsoft customers will wait for the microsoft product to be released later rather than migrate now to a competetor's solution..
The question that begs asking is, what application are they afraid of? Is it StarOffice? Is it applixware? Are they afraid of the GNOME announcement that there will be something competing with their all-encompasing win32 GUI/API? Perhaps this is the case, they want people to write to the win32 API on Linux rather than to the new gtk/gnome API.
If this vaporware ever condenses into something real and if they can trick developers to be lazy and write to a win32 API on top of linux instead of learning GTK... Then developers and users will not see the advantages the Linux platform provides over windows; after all it'll act and run like windows if it's on top of the windows libraries. In the end new users will be disenchanted with the lindows-winux system and go back to regular windows.
Probably an announcement is forthcoming that the win32 API for Linux is 'just around the corner' ('just wait for the new release!').
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
you forgot:
(4) bugs in linux version that are explained away as being linux's fault and not M$'s
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
I think Sun's decision to open up Star Office has really scared the $%!+ out of Microsoft. Office is their cash cow even more so than Windows.
Question: Does Office for the Mac use Visual Basic? It seems to me that it will be very difficult for Microsoft to port Office to Linux since it uses VB throughout as a component of Office. They would have to make VB run on Linux as well. They of course could replace VB with perl or python. Imagine Office with embedded perl!! Might be worth it then!
Yeah, I read it that way also. But then again, I tend to read into stuff alot.
It would make since to me, for them to make a closed-source type of program, similar to wine, and use that to run there apps with. That way once office works, it would work for other apps with little work.
Of course they would probably add something to the ported apps so that ONLY the apps that they want ported, will work. That would keep people from using it to port their own apps which would take away from Windows.
Confused enough? I am.
But, this could all be a big joke anyway.
Please, dear God, if they do port it, though, let it not be like the truly hideous Solaris port of IE. *barf*.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
From Mainsoft's press release page:
>>
. Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original Windows-based source code into MainWin.
If I wanted all this junk, I would just forget
about Linux and use Windows itself.
First of all, the person writing the article apparently is ignorant to the rest of Win32->Linux efforts, as he/she totally forgot to mention WINE. They said that access to Windows 98/2000 source code was essential to doing such a port. But, like anyone who has traced WINE's accomplishments, you would know that they have no such access, and probably are having better success than anyone else.
Second of all, I find it very interesting that this is coming out 2 months before Sun unveils the Free version of StarOffice. They've been working on it for over a year, and just now, with the announcements of people working on GNOME, do they mention this project. For those of you who don't read the Robert Cringely columns often, let me tell you what this means. Microsoft often announces products with no intention of shipping them just to scare others out of the marketplace. For example, the X box announcements are designed to hold Sony at bay, not that they actually plan to ship a product anytime this century. Therefore, they are probably announcing this so that developers don't unilaterally jump ship for GNOME now that it has good backing and support. They are trying to leverage their Win32 platform by saying "we'll have it for Linux, we swear!". Then, it doesn't matter if they port to Linux or not -- they have kept everyone coding for Win32 instead of GNOME.
Engineering and the Ultimate
I think part of this is just a PR play so that they can tell the DOJ that their products run on all sorts of OS's.
However, this may be an attempt to make the whole C#/.NET framework actually functional. (Or at least, functional on paper.) C# is supposedly platform independant and interoperable with Common Language Standard (CLS) compliant languages. But it's only independant across .NET platforms, and currently the CLS compliant languages are Visual C++ and VB.
By making their products run on Linux, they can still advertise themselves as platform-independant and language interoperable. Whether or not this is actually true depends on whether or not MainSoft can pull this off.
Personally, I see this as a PR play, and that MainSoft will crumble trying to support the independance facade.
I can spell. I just can't type.
Yeah, right. By a K higher, you mean 1000 times bigger, right? Example I have handy: aristotle.txt (short essay I wrote) = 7854 bytes. aristotle.doc (translated to word format so I could print it on the school computers) = 101754 bytes. Try checking facts before spouting.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
...is my question. Y'know, like Corel's *cough*, "port" of WordPerfect Office?
Of course, the worst part is that if they did do it the Corel-style easy way and use an emulation layer, millions of copies would sell anyway.
Doesn't matter much to me, though, I've been using StarOffice since 3.1 and it's just BETTER than MSOffice, no matter what platform it's running on.
MoNsTeR
Yeah, they've got some nerve. I never install my RPM's as root. And because the programs never run afterwards, I'm also immune to all of the bugs and security holes that they might have!
Seriously, though, every software developer who uses RPM's has an installation procedure of "Just install this RPM as root." Get over it.
For more information, click here.
I don't know about you, but if you know how to properly admin an NT box then blue screens are a non issue. We have NT boxes at work with many months of uptime doing data acquisition. Use good hardare and be careful about drivers, especially printer drivers.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Naw, I don't buy it.
By the time this beast is ever expected to be released, there's going to be plenty of software around to prove that Linux _is_ viable. I'd argue we're already there. This would never work as a FUD vehicle.
On the other hand, the very rumor that Microsoft is porting its apps to Linux gives the OS an immediate boost in credibility. It doesn't matter if no one buys these apps -- this extinguishes the tired "it'll never run mainstream apps like MS Office" refrain.
Now if Intuit would get off its sorry butt and port Quicken, that would pretty much round out the picture.
<sarcasm>yep, that's right. I know I'm going to stop writing Linux software because there might be a Microsoft port. I think I heard Miguel, RMS, and ESR say the same. And I know Linus said that he will stop working on the kernel if Microsoft starts porting to Linux. This is the same reason that nobody but Microsoft writes applications for Windows. You know, the Microsoft WordPerfect Suite, Microsoft Mathematica, Microsoft Photoshop, Microsoft AIM, Microsoft Madden Football, Microsoft Diablo, Microsoft Delphi, and lets not forget all that Microsoft shareware.</sarcasm>
And the .doc files usually run
around a K higher than they would be in text.
Well, they were nice enough to give me a Win98 PC next to my Linux box here, so let's try it out:
python_bestiary.txt - 23KB
Load into Word 2000, let's just give it a new font and save...
python_bestiary.doc - 83KB
What was that about a crack pipe?
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
For those who don't recognise that reference- first of all, furrfu- second of all, this is the real leverage that comes with having Office on a platform. Given the expectation that 'oh, Office is on platform X, therefore legitimising it', Microsoft can and does use this as a weapon. For example, they literally told Apple to kill off Quicktime or they'd kill Office for MacOS- the quote comes from an exchange like 'We think it would be better if Quicktime, uh, wasn't.' 'Let's get this straight, are you asking us to knife Quicktime for you- to knife our baby?' 'Yes, we're talking about knifing the baby'.
Should MS apps be established on Linux it'd be like that only instead of dealing with a single point of development and control, MS would be dealing with little groups and individuals, threatening them that if they didn't stop work on their projects, MS would kill Office for Linux (and presumably blame said developer). This degree of blackmail might not work on RMS types but there is a level where it is frightening. Basically it's a sort of extortion, and the point is to engender a climate of fear and obedience. Some of us (mac people into development) have been able to watch this sort of thing going on in the real world for longer than you linux people have... and yes it seems to be illegal, the antitrust case nailed them for JUST this sort of behavior. Now we've got to see if that sticks, or if they get to ignore that as well.
At any rate- there is no benefit from having Office available for your platform. None. There's no significant compatibility between versions, ports are never in synch, it takes large amounts of motivation for them to produce software even half good (i.e. IE for mac) and even if they do they take pains to use it to cut off your other options and change the 'territory' right out from under you so your choices are dead.
The people screaming 'nooooo!' are, ironically, a lot closer to the mark than the people screaming 'yay' here. You've got to look at the business practices that inevitably go along with this sort of 'beachhead'. These guys kill markets- that is their whole schtick. Why would you want them coming over and killing your market too, even if your market is largely mindshare instead of commercial? All it will do is kill your choices without giving you the supposed benefits you think you'd be getting. And that's because, as was repeatedly found by the judge in the antitrust case, they really make a special EFFORT to kill your choices and kill your market- we're not talking about 'network effects', we're talking 'knife the baby'. An MS guy actually accepted those words, mid-negotiation, as descriptive of what they were trying to do. How can that be right? How can that be a market?
Hopefully they can't find a way to tweak Linux a little and turn around and patent it, a la Kerberos.
They may finally be realizing that trying to hold on to a monopoly in the OS market is a futile exercise. The real strength of MS is not in making a good OS but instead in making user friendly Office applications. They realize that the future for MS on the desktop will be software not in the OS.
If true, this will be good for Linux and good for MS. A lot of people have to use Office for work but hate Windows and would switch to Linux in a second if Office were ported to Linux. This is good for MS because it expands their present and future market for software; this is good for Linux because it removes this tremendous barrier to using Linux in the work place. It would actually be an enlightened move on MS's part to do this.
Most software has to be installed as root, especially if it's going to be of any use to its participents.
Where did you get this idea? Virtually all software I have used in unix-like systems can be installed in home directories just fine. If it's autoconf/automaked, then ./configure --prefix=/home/user. RPM also provides relocation, and I assume Debian has a way, too.
With a file disk quota of 5 megs standard on most machines, do you think most users will be able to install Office (or StarOffice, or anything for that matter?)
5 meg standard? We're talking desktop systems here. If an entire organisation is using it, then individual users won't have to install it themselves. Home users probably won't be using quotas.
What I think the OP was trying to say was that it would require root privs to run, i.e. it would have to be installed suid root. Isn't this the case with their Frontpage extentions for unix? There is absolutely no need for either to be suid root, assuming good design. However, MS aren't exactly consistent when it comes to good design :)
It problably went something like "Oh SHIT! We're REALLY going to get broken up!"
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's called an investor lawsuit and they can and do happen. If the board of a publicly held company intentionally misslead the investors, they can bring a case against said company, showing a drop in the stock price as proof that they've been defrauded.
(IANALBIRALO/. I am not a lawyer but I read a lot of /.) The problem is, ms investors are making a ton of jack on MS stock, and don't bitch when it dips.
Here's probably what happened. Mainsoft had a programmer that made something similar to libwine. The higher up's saw it and decided that they would ask Microsoft if they would be interested in such a thing. Someone at Microsoft said sure, here's some seed money for R&D and we'll give you more when it's done if we're interested.
Most likely this will never see the light of day. Especially given Microsoft's .NET platform. I think they would much rather port all of their apps to the .NET platform and have a .NET port for Linux (and Solaris). It may be a few years out, but then again, so would any Office port.
You know how people joke that MS-linux isn't far off? Well, is it? Consider this..,
MS makes a Linux distro. They make a closed-source, propriotary DE that supports most of the Win32 API. They include support for DirectX, COM, and OLE. Now, all these changes require major changes to the kernel. While these changes are GPL'ed, MS has now effectivly forked the kernel.
People start writing apps for this new MS/Linux. Because these apps rely on the modified kernel, and propriotary DE, they will not run on regular Linux.
Everybody switches to this new distro, because it has more apps and better technology.
MS has won, despite the GPL.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Visual Basic for Linux? (shudder)
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
With Microsoft comes the Microsoft developers comes the legions of loyal Microsoft users that want their Microsof style programs.
I'm a little weary of inviting a 600lb gorilla into my parlor even if he promises to behave.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems that the only way that becomes a good plan is when you make inferior ports of the product that are just good enough to make people want them (I understand that many MS ports to the Mac are pretty sub-standard), and boom, you give them some incentive to migrate.
Nope, it's not just you. That's exactly what they'll likely do.
But it seems awfully disingenuous. Am I misinterpreting that, or is it more of a speculated, rather than overt, strategy?
It is disingenous, they just don't care as long as it works. Microsoft has continued to be in deep denial about their crimes. They aren't likely to consider the antitrust climate when making these decisions. The case is over, the facts are on the books. Yes, there's the appeals process to go through, but the facts have already been established, I don't think the DOJ can keep adding more to it now. What's the DOJ gonna do? Bring another case against them? I don't think this sort of strategy is even illegal. Disingenous, yes, but not illegal.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
IE5 and the other MS applications that are running on OSX are built in Carbon, not BSD. it would take a lot of effort to port something based on the Mac-specific Carbon APIs to BSD. Sorry.
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
The conspiracy-theorist in me believes Micros~1 is trying to steal thunder from LinuxWorld Expo without actually making the announcement themselves. However, such a move doesn't surprise me. Bill Gates has never demonstrated loyalty to anything other than making a buck. If he thinks he can make money selling Office to Linux users, he'll do it without the slightest hesitation.
Those who remember the port of IE to Solaris, however, know that Micros~1 will not adapt their apps to the host OS, but will instead try to graft on enough of Windoze's "architecture" to make it work, just barely.
For example, it wouldn't surprise me in the least for LinuxOffice to require a Windoze-style registry, needed to support per-user preferences. This despite the fact that .*rc files have been around forever. Also, expect a butt-load of COM/DCOM components to get installed requiring root privileges (though the need for these prvileges will never be adequately explained).
But I suspect the biggest delays will come from trying to implement Micros~1's demands for copy protection and to prevent "unauthorized" use of "their" software. So, assuming they work out how to translate NT's methods of "license" administration, expect to be required to install a "license" manager that's completely incompatible with any other "license" managers you may have (and may even interact badly with them). Oh, and the CD key will have 96 digits :-).
In short, this is FUD of the highest order, even higher than normal, since it doesn't come directly from Micros~1, thereby giving them plausible deniability. Even if it's true, I wouldn't expect anything to ship for at least a year and, like the initial release of all Micros~1 products, will probably work quite poorly. Thus, even if you're working on an office suite, this story may effectively be ignored.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Well, it seems like everyone is smacking MS down pretty hard here. I actually think its a good thing for MS and Linux.
:-(
Good thing for MS: MS will get to put software into the Linux world. So what? Well, now with the apparant MS breakup, the applications division is "totally oblivious" to the OS division. Therefore, the apps division can port stuff like Office into Linux without any "conflict of interest", so to speak. Therefore, they get there apps out to all the geeks. No if they will only make the stuff they port open source, yeah right
Good for Linux community: It will create a little competition in the Linux world. This could be a good thing. Take Star Office for example, Sun might have reason to make their Star Office program a little less bloated if MS Office were to come into the picture. Basically, competition drives productivity and advancement. Without it there will be no drive for developers to create decent apps for such a great OS!
Well, I'm glad to see the moderators don't suffer from that nasty thing we call a sense of humor.
Bite my yammer.
for each user name on your box? I work for a non-profit hospital and it really irks me to think of all the cash going out to M$ because they use Windows when that money could be used for better equiptment.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Don't want 'em? Don't use 'em. Unfortunately, many of us work in the real world, where Office documents are the de facto standards. Sorry if companies like Microsoft (and AOL, as discussed yesterday) are making Linux more palatable to the masses. Heaven forbid anyone actually finding Linux useful for their normal everyday tasks.
For more information, click here.
A reliable anonymous source gave me an unconfirmed report that this rumor is true.
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Can anybody expand on what exactly that means? MS wants to introduce new audiences to its software, so it ports Office to the Mac or Linux, thinking those users will migrate to Windows? Maybe it's just me, but it seems that the only way that becomes a good plan is when you make inferior ports of the product that are just good enough to make people want them (I understand that many MS ports to the Mac are pretty sub-standard), and boom, you give them some incentive to migrate. But it seems awfully disingenuous. Am I misinterpreting that, or is it more of a speculated, rather than overt, strategy?
(Note that I'm not suggesting MS is above being disingenous; just that given the antitrust climate, an overt strategy like that is pretty conspicuous.)
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
. . the hair stood up on the back of my neck.
Porting Office to a non-MS OS that runs on PCs is... I will stop short of saying "suicide" ...a really bad idea for Microsoft's "business model."
This /. luser is not fooled.
Axel
Axel
mhm23x3, alt.fan.karl-malden.nose
I, for one, would love to have viewers ported to Linux. You know, like the Word Viewer, PowerPoint Viewer, and Excel Viewer.
This would be great for us to easily view the documents Windows people so often send us. In fact, it would be fantastic.
But a full Office suite would be really bad. Microsoft should not try to get its foot in the door with this. Newbies would use it more than any free suite (because they're used to it) and eventually it would become a serious competitor to the cool little suties starting up right now.
That's my opinion.
It's a shame it won't occur to anyone outside the geek community that the reason MICROS~1 can't port Office to Linux is that they can't write anything in an environment where they can't freely hack the OS to get around problems.
Unless, Office for Linux ultimately requires that you run it on MSLinux 2001.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
PaperClip meet my good old friend xkill
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
Of course MS is porting to Linux--they have all the manpower in the world and there is absolutely no argument against doing a port.
The question is: Are they going to release a port? And if so, under what terms (cost, license, etc) and via what channels (internet, store shelves, etc).
These are strategic questions. Imagine Joe Blow walks into Walmart and sees "MS Office for Linux" on the shelf. He thinks "Hey, my kid keeps talking about this Linux deal--and it looks like Microsoft supports it. I'll give it a whirl." Whoops! (for MS). That won't happen.
MS's only hope is to lure users back from Linux-land--but how? Office is becoming moot (I predict Office will run perfectly under Wine within 18 months). Games are becoming moot. UI is becoming moot (although only because GNOME/KDE seem to have a Microsoft fixation, not because their work is so great). Price/performance is already moot. Soon, all MS will have going for them is what Novell has: A large userbase.
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http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
And who should enforce these penalties? An overpowerful government that is suddenly in control of the software market? Sorry...that's probably not what you want. If you can't deal with release dealys, then don't read the pre-release announcements and find yourself pleasently suprised when you browse the shelves of your local CompUSA. (Windows.NET? I didn't know they were making Windows.NET)
<rant>At the risk of getting marked flamebait, it's sometimes sickening to see the knee-jerk anti-Microsoft reaction around here. How many posts of "Nooooo" are there in this thread? What possible harm does this do to Linux in general, or you in particular. Just because Office might work under Linux, nobody is going to force you to buy and use it. I personally can't stand StarOffice, but when Sun announced the GPLing of it, I wasn't posting "Nooooo....say it isn't so" all over that thread. Sometimes the people who read this website and post to it need to get over their biases and sort out the facts.</rant>
Now, I realize this was not an announcement by MS, and it probably isn't even true, but I certainly wouldn't doubt that its a falsity started and encouraged by MS.
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
They know they're going to lose the DOJ case. They are under no illusions at all that they have been doing anything but evil for the past X years.
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
I was watching Silicon Spin, John C. Dvorak's (the C stands for Windbag) pundit show on ZDTV a few weeks ago, and they had the president of Be as one of their pundits. At one point he claimed that some of the developers he knew in the applications department were very enthusiastic about porting their crap t Linux, but the high-and-mighty OS people wouldn't have it, and kept that project down.
Personally, I don't even want to see Microsoft anything on Linux. Can they be trusted to behave and conform to Unix conventions like directory structure, or are they going to Windowize everything to fit their application-centric worldview?
Didn't you just answer your own question?
If you don't get it: MS wants to stifle the coding spirit that makes Linux what it is today. So, who wants to put M$ apps on Linux? M$ does, that's who.
Bite my yammer.
hehe :) that's why I wrote "real" ;-)
you misread what I said. Or I misaid what I wanted to.
You can write all the software you want. But who is going to download it when there is a Microsoft version avalible? What do you think a casual user would pick? Microsoft, or someone with the user name NRLax27?
Sure Microsoft doesnt make alot of the genres of software that is released for Linux, but that doesn't mean they cant.
The article notes Microsoft as claiming that they will be using these products as a gateway app to Windows from Linux platforms.
Exsqueeze me? Does this not ring a little hollow? We've all heard the joke:
As extreme as that comment may be, look at the truth behind it: practically every one of us using Linux experienced Windows (or, for those who came in early, DOS) before we were exposed to Linux. We know what is available, and what the vanguard apps for Windows are. So how, precisely, is an app we already have knowledge of (if not experience in use) going to make us think "Hey, that OS might be worth checking out?" Almost to a man^H^H^Hperson, we have checked it out.
Now, what I find interesting are the other implications of this move:
- If they fix the porting problems, does this mean that the WINE people might have access to apps (even in binary) that show the path to emulation?
- Is there perhaps an "adopt and expand" strategy in the works, trying to get Linux users to adopt Windows standards by putting them on home turf? If so, they're in for a suprise, I think.
- Alternately, are they perhaps preparing a bolt-hole in case the recent court decisions force them to consider multi-platform support to maintain their market share in non-OS apps?
- Finally, will we be seeing source code for these things? I doubt it, but without it, can Windows ever hope to sway the Linux support base, i.e. people who like having access to the source because even if *they* don't fiddle with code, someone else can and thereby ensure quick bug fixes and the like?
Just some thoughts
-TBHiX-
"...people claim marijuana is a gateway drug to other drugs. No, man. It's a gateway drug to carpentry. You spend all your time figuring out how to turn things into bongs."
-Denis Leary, No Cure For Cancer
This has already happened. I tried to open my resume, created in Word 2000 ("100% backward compatible with Word 97!") in Word 98 on the Mac. It was an absolute mess. Completely useless. Utterly unreadable. Oh, and it didn't display well either. ;)
For more information, click here.
Another comment - Everyone has been dissing Micro$oft. While I probably qualify for the Micro$oft Hater's Hall of Fame, I would like to ask everyone to spend a little time thinking about the potentional benefits. Sure, Micro$oft might try to make Linux look bad, but I think most people are starting to get sick of their sly little ways. It is more likely that this will bring hoards of new users to Linux. And, ideally, they will eventually go the way I went, and eventually realize that everything Micro$oft is fscked up, and start using Netscape. :-)
And one last thing - everyone keeps talking about the "I Love You" virus wiping out systems. Hello? Unless Office runs with suid root (which it might), all it can do is wipe out your account. Of course, if "root" is dumb enough to run Office, it could do some pretty bad damage...
One last thing... I just can't resist commenting on it. Are they going to port that annoying little paperclip over to Linux? If they replaced it with Tux, I could probably stand to have it run for a while. But, personally, I'm all for learning *roff. I currently don't do any "word processing", but if I start to, I really do want to learn a way to do it without a GUI. A bit more work, yes, but no paperclips rambling about how great Micro$oft is, no "Insufficient memory" warnings, no crashes, no backwards compatibility, no 8 TB 1-page files...
SUWAIN: Slashdot User Without An Interesting Name
1. IE for Solaris - hahaha, that lasted a week
2. Windows MediaPlayer for linux - 3 days
Right now is the time to start avocating linux. ( there's even a HOWTO ) If people start moving to linux with MS Office, then MS has a chance to stick around in the 64-bit world. Let's drop this company before then please.
Now MS Office may be a big deal in win32 world, but when I have to use win32 I still perfer StarOffice. I quit using Word at about 6.0 personally and chose other suites. At my school I used StarOffice to do my excel and word documents for graphics theory. If you lead your co-workers and classmates by eample they'll follow you.
I got just about 20-50 people using linux in my area, and no telling how many on irc. How many have you converted to linux?
-- Mongoose
Look at me I can rant like Dennis Miller
I mean it makes a certain amount of sense to port to Mac because I think most remaining Mac users are sort of die hard. Hence, making Mac a more palatable platform doesn't really lure people away from Windows.
But Linux is different. If MS sells Office on Linux they may make a several million in the short term but really they would probably just enourage a significant portion of their market share to move over in the long term.
Consider companies that want to switch to a new OS but are tied to Windows because they are dependant on Office.
So I think this will turn out to be just a rumor, or else, MS will back off later claiming that Linux is not mature enough support their products.
Most software has to be installed as root, especially if it's going to be of any use to its participents. With a file disk quota of 5 megs standard on most machines, do you think most users will be able to install Office (or StarOffice, or anything for that matter?)
This will be a good chance for Linux to really shine: to show that supposedly buggy code can be run and not crash the whole system. It's a win-win situation. If the code runs right, we have another great office app. If the code runs wrong, we have more evidence that Microsoft writes bad code (and the system will recover just fine).
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
When has there ever been something not true on the internet? Come on, if you can't believe everything on Slashdot, what the hell can you believe?
Right! Even CNN says so in this article.
v
s
!
mswordview
lynx
Why is that annoying? Come on, it's almost faster than double-clicking, and you don't tweak your RSI from using the rodent.
--
Does narcissism count as a hobby? --Shawn Latimer
There is no way that anyone at MS (besides the marketing department) is actually doing any work on porting MS Office to Linux. You realize how much programming work that would be, right? This is just another in a long list of PR stunts. MS will never do anything that might reduce its OS leverage, unless the DOJ can force 'em. If that happens, maybe ol' Lucifer should be running for the shovel.
Wah!
With the speed that MS adds 'features' there is no chance that anyone else can catch up with the 'feature creep' or 'bloatware'.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Click here.
Seems they left the door open with the "other unixes" wording in their press release.
Also, Loki has Eric's Solitaire, which is the best solitaire game out there.
There I am typing an email when BAM! up pops a Linux Penguin Office Assistant and says to me in a patronising way: It looks like you are trying to write an email
Quick kill all MS applications:
ps aux | grep -i "\Wmsoffice" | awk '{print $2;}' | xargs kill -9
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
But, yes, Microsoft is probably dropping a little bit of money (percentage-wise, less than you or I spend on a Latte) on getting Office ported to Linux. Why not? They can do it just to cover their bases and "learn about the enemy"; they don't ever have to release it. And if they do decide to release it, they can release it in a form that leaves their Linux customers begging for the Windows version.
Altogether, I think people in the Linux community shouldn't get confused by these kinds of rumors. Pick a goal and follow it. I don't think that reimplementing a Windows environment (KDE or Gnome) on top of Linux is a particularly good goal, but if that's what tickles your fancy, at least don't get distracted by Microsoft's usual business and marketing practices; you should know about them by now.
To my surprise, the paper clip works quite well under the latest WINE. Along with Microsoft Word.
Who needs a port!
Again I risk getting marked as flamebait, but I really do think that you are far too much of a conspiracy theorist. This is not what Microsoft wants. And even if it was, what software developer do you know that gets stifled by a word processer and a spreadsheet?
If they do that, then what conceivable advantage would there be to using MS(crippled)Office rather than an open source alternative, such as the Gnome Office suite that everybody's getting behind, or KOffice? Hell, even StarOffice.
I actually like using AbiWord over MSWord better, despite the fact that AbiWord's not feature complete, and is really buggy. But at least it isn't constantly second-guessing what I'm trying to do and screwing up by formatting. I tried using MSWord once to do my resume, and I got so pissed off I redid it all in HTML.
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And I'm positive this annoucement coming out only a day or two after Sun, HP, Compaq and gang announcing the Gnome Foundation is no coincedence.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
It's about time that microsoft realized it is not the only OS on Earth, and is willing to acknowledge another OS may be running somewhere else...
How Jaded Are You?
I think it's more likely that it would bring Windows people to Linux than Linux people to Windows.
:)
I don't think it really matters whether making app X cross-platform brings more linux people to windows or more windows people to linux. What matters is that there is one more application that works on both platforms, making it easier to transition between the two. This gives people a choice as to which operating system(s) they run, and chances are they'll end up choosing whichever happens to be a better operating system
The shareholder is always right.
MSFT may have a conflict of interest, but they're not going to simply sit there with their heads in the sand.
It is pretty amusing tho - even with all their Mac development, the fact that they've been able to hack their own OS whenever it suited the purposes of the apps people is now biting them in the ass something fierce.
'ARRGH! Pirate Designers of the Internet, we be!'
Buy it?
You know why I was so sure that they'd never port it? Piracy. You know M$ (I guess up until now) thought that the user base of Linux would certainly USE MS Office for Linux, they just wouldn't pay for it. Their picture of the average Linux user is a Gnutella-leechin', software pir8in', Microsoft-hatin' hacker punk who don't respect no authority!
I suppose the threat of Linux moving to the desktop and expanding its roles for business (which is where their REAL money is) finally became serious enough for them to move into the early "embrace" mode of their embrace-extend-extinguish assimilation process. Personally I didn't think the threat to their business sector from Linux was even close to "serious" yet, but hey, whatever. That's up to the Microsoft analysts.
My God, what will be next....Microsoft Linux 2005?
How likely do you think a Microsoft Linux distro is? The more I think about it, actually....the more evil sense it makes. Other than the fact that they'd have to keep the source open to everything that was GPLed before. I suppose they COULD develop a window manager (explorer-like?) that wasn't opensource and include it in a distro, couldn't they?
Frightening thought.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
Does this mean I can now got buy myself a 38 GB HDD and fill it with .DOC files finally?
...joy...
So from what I can gather, these are the geniuses that brought us Unix IE. Yup. Just look at the explosion of IE users on Unix. If they do just as good a job on Office, then MS better watch out or their OS market will disappear overnight!
My favourite part is how they say their software isn't a Windows emulator. They just build every single DLL that you'll ever need into a Unix library. And probably a registry too, for good measure.
And you thought administrating Windows was bad enough on a Windows box...
--
mainsoft.com
"MainWin is the answer for being the first in the Linux market with industrial-quality, mature applications."
<snip>
"MainWin is Mainsoft's Windows platform for UNIX systems including Linux. MainWin includes the implementation of Win32 APIs and Windows NT-based services on UNIX. Through strategic agreements with Microsoft, Mainsoft has access to source code for Windows NT® and Windows 2000®. Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."
<snip>
"No development required. Instead of taking months to rewrite the code, take days to rehost it on Linux using MainWin. MainWin provides native Linux performance with full Windows functionality."
<snip>
"MainWin is more than a porting technology: MainWin is a full Windows implementation on UNIX, allowing you to rehost your entire Windows application code base on UNIX."
<snip>
"MainWin for Linux is now in limited beta release, with general customer availability scheduled for early first quarter of 2000."
Wow!
"Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."
Now, that's good news...
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
From:
http://www.mainsoft.com/press/pr -internetexpl.html
Microsoft has been distributing Internet Explorer for Solaris and HP/UX since 1997 by utilizing Mainsofts MainWin product to port Internet Explorer technologies to UNIX. In this new contract, Microsoft has engaged Mainsofts Professional Services organization to assist in maintaining and updating Internet Explorer for UNIX. This support service allows Microsoft to most effectively benefit from Mainsofts extensive cross-platform application development expertise with proven methodologies, best practice tools and professional skills honed during hundreds of successful porting projects
Break out the snowblower, Satan! There's a blizzard a'comin!
I work for a software company that uses mainwin to port their product to different unixes. Recently, I watched them port their entire product, which includes a vbscript compiler and MSIE, to linux. They abandoned the project recently because of the lack of necessity for the product. It's a little slow, but it works. I works well. I saw a small web browser based on the MSIE engine running but the problem is that no one really wants this. In my opinion, someone should buy mainwin, use the IE engine (found in visual C++) and create a free browser called NOTIE or something. it could be interesting..
-thinkpol
Which is it?
FUD to slow the development of WINE, or actions anticipating a government mandated breakup of MS into an application company and an operating system company?
1: This could be their "vaporware strategy."
2: Any bridge from linux to windows they create will work both ways and they know it.
3: This may be the "embrace" portion of the embrace/extend/extinguish cycle ....
4: This is probably a ploy to manipulate the DOJ trial and the EU commission investigating them -- they don't even need to produce anything tangible -- just claim they are
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
'nuff said, really.
Once it's ported, it will be flaky. To make it 'stable', you'll have to get some proprietary libs, which will require a kernel recompile and break other things. But those won't be really good performers, unless you use the Monkey$oft distro of Linux - which won't feature Tux the penguin, but Bill the Dodo on the box - and it won't come with source.
M$ has cried "Wolf!" too many times. They've screwed over too many competitors using the E&E tactic. There is no reason what-so-ever for something like IE to require a 100MB install, but it does. Why? E&E. We would all do well to re-read the Halloween Documents, and realize that this is exactly what was proposed.
Anyone who aspires to run M$ software on a Linux box is selling themselves short. We can do better. If M$ really wanted to play nicely with the other kids, they would simply open up their file formats and standards - show us all those APIs, and leave it at that.
Even giving us all their source-code would be a dis-service. It would amount to a massive DoS against open source developers - who would be compelled by their nature to actually read that code, wasting untold time in the process.
M$, open your formats and APIs. That's all. The managers and non-techies will still use your software, and we won't bad-mouth you at every turn. And if you really want to be generous, give us money. Give us grants, so we can code in peace, without worrying about bills. Keep your Office.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
From reading the article it looks like it is going to be awhile before you're going to see MS office on the shelves. and if i remember correctly I didn't hear great things about Corel's little office package when it came out. I've also been able to squeak by using StarOffice and will continue to (if i can) even if this project pans out.
"You have the right to free speech...as long as, you aren't dumb enough to actually try it." - The Clash
Porting DCOM to UNIX is one thing, but Office is another beast entirely. Microsoft nearly destroyed their market for Mac applications when they tried to offer a weak port of the Windows version of Office -- people simply started refusing to upgrade. These days, the two have pretty much completely different code -- you can't really port the Windows version of Office to any other OS, because they're joined at the hip with DLL-Hell, private system calls, etc.
Do you have any links to something like a news article which would back up the claim that Microsoft announced office applications for the JavaStation? I'm trying to start a list of Microsoft's vaporware and this sounds like it would make an excellent example. So far, the best link I've found has been the Caldera court brief regarding DR DOS which does a terrific job of explaining how Microsoft uses vaporware to harm competitors at the expense of consumers, but I could use some more examples, and this JavaStation announcement sounds perfect. If you have a link to a reference on this (or any other vaporware for that matter) please email it to me or post it here. Thanks.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
It'll be called Office 2003 for Linux. In the game, you get to "kill" the office assistant.
When Java was in its earlier stages and MS released a version of Java that was incredibly buggy, they did it for a reason. They wanted customers using their languages. This might hold true for OSs as well. By using MS software, you trash your system, first of all, MS will not cliam the liability because it isn't their 'environment' and why would they even want to do anything good with this? Why haven't we seen MS software for any platform that isn't Windows (of course disregarding their early years when they were in the unix biz). POSIX is evil to them, and they want to bat it down (in my opinion) - why else would they offer instructions on how to dump a linux installation in favor of windows???? Why do they continually keep their software as proprietary as possible? Why would anyone want to be dealing with a dishonest company? Their lack of honesty is a major factor for Judge Jackson's decisions - Bill Gates was blatently lying in a sworn testimony. Its a miracle they are still on their feet. Only in America.
Remember, Linux is ours and they can't take it away.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
I was at SUN when they announced "porting office applications to the "javaStation" (SUN's NC) back in '96.
Then of course they don't do it and everybody thinks there must be a problem with the JavaStations (which there was the OS sucked).
Now they are going to try and do the same thing with Linux... tell everyone... we are porting to Linux when they are Scared of linux because linux is going to eat the mid server market of win2000.
Then they will come out saying "It doesn't work" and spread FUD around it. I hope star office is as good as they claim, and I know MS can't diss the os like they dissed the javastation.
marc
Microsoft's Macintosh Office products are missing enough that they could never be used in an enterprise environment.
Unfortunately, Microsoft decided that they wouldn't port a few important enterprise Office components, and I assume so to ensure that the Mac never finds its way into enterprise environments.
Here are a few of the problems:
- They didn't port Access. Access is one of the key enterprise components of Office, so they decided not to port it.
- They decided not to port Outlook, but instead to write another program, Entourage, which is basically Outlook without any support for anything not home-related like MAPI.
- All of their Mac versions come out a year after the Windows versions. This ensures that Mac users will be happy about having an up-to-date copy of Office, until a year later, when the new Windows version comes out and the Mac version can't read its files.
However, they're doing a really good job of making Mac users forget all these problems - mostly because they're home users, and love the new 'Mac-like' interface. They forget Microsoft's business tactics in the process.
So, I hope that an Office port to Linux/UNIX will be full-featured, enterprise/network-ready version - unlike the Mac version of today.
okay, I know as a good little linux user microsoft is evil, etc., but I'm psyched to think this would finally happen. as it is, I dual-boot my machine between win98 and debian, where I primarily need windows so that I can use office at full power. (I have yet to see a "compatible" program that didn't botch subtle formatting things. of course, one winbox to another can botch things, but the probability is lower.)
like it or not, office has become the default standard for file formats, and after using it for 10 years, I don't want to learn another software package. I don't mind learning a new operating system, e.g. linux, but when I need to buckle down and get some work done, I want to know that I can still use everything I've learned thus far.
besides, I haven't seen any real attempt to create a good presentation development package, which means it's powerpoint or nothing. the entire free software movement seems to spurn such "corporate" practices such as ties, suits, and fancy presentations, which imho is one of the reasons linux et. al. haven't already risen to a more prominent level, but that's another topic for another time.
The lagging sales of W2K was a rude slap in the revenue stream and the growing linux market share looks like greener grass for ms to harvest on.
To all the investors reading this and wondering "Does MS believe it will win the DOJ anti-trust case?". This anoucement should make the answer a resounding "NO, they know they're going to loose".
Yeah running Outlook on Linux depends a lot on how the Exchange server is set up. It can be configured to do the POP/3 or IMAP thing thus solving all my problems (I'm assuming this is how yours is working?) The other possibility I've found is using fetchmail to pull it off, but NTLM (some proprietary M$ thing) needs to be enabled. None of these are present and I've been told by the administrator that they were not going to do anything to change it
The trials and tribulations of corporate bullsh*t...
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
Yeah, you want Evolution. It'll do all that and more. Plus, it'll probably be released as a stable version long before Outlook ever comes out for Linux, if it ever does.
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
http://www.mainsoft.com/products/linux/linux_downl oad.html
here is the full version of freecell based on ms source code!!
Then no thanks. I tried IE for Solaris about a year ago. Any piece of software that seg faults because you hit the "compose" button is not for me. I'll stick with Gnumeri, AbiWord, pine, and vi thank you.
Joseph W. Breu
What about Trademail Client, the Outlook/Exchange compatible mail program that Bynari was developing? I've never tried it, but I remember they were making a big stir about it several months ago.
IIRC, you do have to add a small component to the Exchange Server, so if you don't have control over the server it doesn't do you much good.
--
Probably the best thing they can do to maintain their office suite monopoly. If they don't release soon, a free alternative will probably gain acceptance and the free (beer) nature could pull a lot of customers if it gains feature parity with MS Office.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Microsoft-bashing isn't always humor. This far down on the page, it's redundant and horribly unnecessary.
I don't want Microsoft apps on Linux! They'll give me the blue screen of death! Ha ha, get it? Blue screen? On Linux? Because of Microsoft? Ahahahahahaha! And then it'll run visual basic scripts and pop up a paper clip on the screen and open up security holes just like all Microsoft software! Stupid Microsoft -- Linux 0wnz j00.
*barf*
For more information, click here.
Microsoft doesn't invest in advertising unless they *know* they're going to get a 7% ROI. I would be willing to bet that their standards for software development are much higher.
... one that's really untapped by any major software house. Prime Real Estate.
Ok, so they port applications to *x. It's just a business strategy. It's a new market space for them to grow into
And the bottom line, for the current CEO, is that if it pays off, the stock holders will be happy. Also, it'll probably help their anti-trust appeal because they'll be able to show that they're not only in the business of OSs, but also in providing valuable applications to the entire user community.
For those keeping up w/UF these days, this shouldn't be too surprising. After all, didn't Pitr just (essentially) port Outlook? Linux loses much of its boasting value, if these VB web worm/virus-thingys start taking down Linux boxes as well. Perhaps this is M$'s attempt to diffuse the blame a bit?
You're right. I would call this the "Diablo 2" syndrome. They announce a product well ahead of its time, so people save up for that, and anything else that is released doesn't sound as good, hence it will slow the purchase of Linux "until MS-Office for Linux is released" which is never, effectively killing the market. A brilliant move by Microsoft. :)
witty sig goes here
I break out in a cold sweat just thinking about it.
And the brethren went away edified.
"Did you know: You can get all your office work done faster, with more multimedia excitement and internet connectivity with the new Windows Milennium Edition! Order today!"
"Tip of the Day: In order to enable the remaining 95% of functionality, click here to install Windows over /dev/hda1! Windows Milennium Edition works hard and plays hard!"
Wah!
If Microsoft ends up being parted into two halfs this will be good for the office half, but bad for the windows half. If shareholders are not allowed to own shares in both companies this can be a really complicated situation. I wonder which shares Bill will chose :)
Microsoft is working ... to port their apps to Linux
And in the anti-virus industry, there was MUCH rejoicing...
Where have you been? Most anti-virus vendors started porting to Linux in December 99.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
No. Because if they do, then I can guarantee you it won't be GPL'd. Not a chance. So there's no possibility of it being used as a standard throughout Linux.
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same problem here where i work... simple fix was to just freaking run VMware... yeah i know i have to run windoz... but hell it only runs Outlook and IE.. everything has been turned off as much as possible.
Non-Deterministic Finite Automata
I'm not sure what this means... _Instead, Microsoft will leverage Linux as an entry point to Windows, "in the same way it does with the Macintosh version of Office."_
Metastasis.
Not a surprise, but considering the inherent problems of M$ Awfice, It'll probably not spread to any systems administered by sentient beings.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Umm...you can already cause GPF's on Linux. Try to compile:
#include
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int *mem;
mem = 0;
printf("%d", *mem);
return 0;
}
And see what happens when you run it. Wow, you mean GPF's are a processor feature and not a Windows one. Gee-golly.
Hey,
it's my job to keep punk rock elite.
What's the chance MS will release it for free???
What's the chance your average Linux user will actually pay for the software?
I think MS Office for Linux will be warezed like nothing else and MS can spout off about how there's no market for 3rd party Linux apps and porting to Linux can actually HURT your software company as no one will buy the windows version once it's ported..
Hell they'll probably even quote Carmark about the lackluster Linux Q3A sales.....
Then again, things work differently in the business world....
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
Actually, I think this conspiracy theory has some weight to it.
I'm willing to bet this is EXACTLY what M$ will do.
Email me.
Don't trust anyone over 90000.
+++ATH0
Alright, MS ports Office to Linux (bla, bla) but what if they use some GPL (not LGPL) code to make everything smoother....bam! now they have a derivative work which must be free (as in mmmm tasty freedom).
Also, who will buy Office for Linux, even many commercial apps (read: Wordperfect, netscape) are free because the companied know noone will pay. $600 for MS Office or run vmware, or run vnc, or walk down the hall, or run staroffice. (next thing you know you see a gigantic GNOME foot on the MS webpage...)
---------------------------------- I like fig newtons...they're tasty
Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?
Don't worry too much though, I hear they're having problems porting the BSOD to Linux. Seems they can never get it to crash.
kwsNI
I still like Windows as my desktop, and Linux as my server. GNOME and KDE apps are almost nice enough, but they still aren?t as refined as Windows.
--
--
http://www.mainsoft.fr/
as strategic as this may sound, porting the MSOffice in its CURRENT form as you and I know it to Linux is totally contradictory to their plan to try and take over the world with .net, effectively being the one mammoth server for ALL productivity /office apps making each and every one of us nothing more than a SUBSCRIBER to Word or Powerpoint sucking down the precious functionality from .net like a glorified dumb terminal, constantly paying MS for the privledge of using their precious Office.
Porting an installable, standalone MSOffice to Linux doesn't help them get there so I would suggest you're crazy if you think this will ever see the light of day.
Now, they may VERY well be porting some sort of ".net client" stuff to Linux. I'd expect that.
I definitely can see this as being true.
/. before, but I thought I'd refresh everyone's memory.
.doc and .xls formats into the market. Right now people are trying to compete with Wordperfect and StarOffice, but I am willing to bet that if Office made it to *NIX, that would spell the death knell for WP and SO (and who knows, maybe Corel along with them). Suddenly the few alternatives you have to office are gone. Not to mention that one of SO's big selling points is its supposed "MSOffice compatibility"... why would you bother if you could just run MSOffice natively?
For those that don't know (you certainly wouldn't from the article), Mainsoft produces a toolkit (MainWin) which implements the WinNT/2k kernel and MFC on various flavours of *NIX, including Solaris and Linux. This enables one to take a Win32/MFC program that was developed on windows and (in theory) have it work on *NIX just by linking to their MainWin libraries. The toolkit has been discussed some here on
I/we use the toolkit here at work (a MAJOR hardware company) to port our dev tools to *NIX, and we've had quite a positive experience with it. Sure there are problems here and there, but for the most part they're due to our windoze developers making assumptions based on the program being run in a win32 environment (things like endianess issues, or the fact that windows uses backslashes for dir separators rather than slashes). It has enabled us to port a product consisting of over 300,000 lines of code without having to rewrite the whole thing. I don't imagine Mainsoft would be having as hard a time porting Office as people are making out, not only because the toolkit is good IMHO, but because in my dealings with them they have seemed like a very sharp bunch of people.
"Now," you say, "why would Microsoft want to port Office to Linux? Isn't Linux their enemy?"
1) Further entrenching the
2) Doing this port will lend MUCH credibility in the public eye to MainWin. If they are lucky, then people will start organizing their multi-platform development strategies around it right from the get-go, and thus Microsoft will "lock them into" using the MFC development model. Right now people tend to use Mainwin to port apps they already have on Windows to *NIX... perhaps if MainWin got enough prestige people would decide right from the start that if they are doing a cross-platform app that they will do it in MFC and use MainWin to do the porting.
Do NOT underestimate this... Mainsoft (and through them, Microsoft) makes some serious bucks off of licensing/royalties for products that use MainWin, as their code is actually linked into yours. If you just make your app on windows and compile with Dev Studio, you pay no royalties, but with a MainWin ported app you are shipping with compiled libs that implement MFC and the NT kernel... that means $$ for Mainsoft and Microsoft.
It especially means $$ if people start deciding that they would like to forge off into the Linux arena because using MainWin is so much more attractive than doing a native port from the ground up. Companies that before were never even considering doing ports to *NIX might start thinking about it if this MSOffice port goes off well because they will say to themselves "shit, we hardly have to do anything ourselves to do this," even though that's not quite necessarily true.
This is very good for Linux in a way too... it means that you will be able to get much more of your favourite apps on your favourite OS.
Mechanik
It's a pitty it also works the other way around, use an Office for Linux as a Bridge from Windows. There is no one way sign on this bridge!
Ever since I had my first "real" computer, an Apple Mac IIvx, I tried to stay away from M$ software where ever I could. Except for Word 5.1 for Mac there was no application that I found usable. There is a reason why I am using Linux now: I don't want to deal with the M$ GUI concept, and I don't need their overpriced buggy software either.
I have high hopes for apps that are currently being developed, like evolution, gnucash, gnumeric, gimp and the "new" GNOMEified star office, just to name a few, that there will be no need for M$ products running on Linux.
What I am really interested in, how much code from WINE will be stolen. Well their licence is playing in hands of M$ here. They will not even need to steal it as usually...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Linux is a fast growing platform with lots of users and no real office suite.
Microsoft has little to lose, and much to gain by releasing office to linux. (closed source binaries, obviously) by doing so, they retain the ability to control and set their "standards" however they want. They retain office as the only office suite most companies are willing to touch (realistically). and they get more power over linux, by making a large part of what people use it for completely microsoft proprietary. Add linux MSIE into the mix, and they have instantly gained quite a foothold in the linux arena.
sure, it has good points, and it may end up being more of a benefit than a curse, but in the short term, this could be much better for microsoft than it is for linux.
assuming it's real at all.
________
It probably won't get rid of those products, but there will be a rather large and substantial market for Microsoft products on Linux - remember AOL is being ported.
I am not suprised. Microsoft *is* a software house. They write and sell software. Do they care if we are not running Windows... maybe... that is one less software sale.
I see this a as a way to get more from what they have worked on.
If they can't sell us the OS they might was well as sell us something. If every x86 box had some sort of licensed Microsoft product on it, they would have some real bragging rights... and a hefty bank roll.
I just see several zealots (which I am not attacking...) refusing to buy any thing Microsoft.
I used to have that attitude... but I love my Microsoft hardware. I also like my Win OS'es for game play.
Maybe through all of this, Microsoft can get to be a better software house... and focus more on that and less on the OS. If they could keep strong software sales, regardless of the OS, the OS becomes less important to the company.
Maybe, just maybe, this could allow Microsoft to start to open up some if the Windows code.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
here
MSFT has an established business porting its applications to Solaris and HP/UX. This does not mean they will port to Linux.
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
I also wonder how many people will actually use Office on Linux... if someone was willing to pay the Microsoft tax and buy Office, wouldn't they be just as likely to buy Windows as well?
<p>
Well, this started me thinking - I use Linux because it's one more step into Unix; I've been using GNU and Cygnus utils long before Linux was around. I just like the paradigm.<p>
But I also REALLY like Word for Windows. WfW 97 is my favorite, and I can whip out a document in less time than it takes most people to read it. All the keycombos are hard coded into my fingertips, and I have dozens of style sheets and macros that eat perl and/or PHP-generated data.<p>
As an administrator, I loved Exchange+Outlook. My users dug it, building custom objects that they'd mail out, stuff like that. And of course, you need Excel and Word to really get the power of Outlook.
<p>
But Linux -- now Linux I've had running as a server (before that, AIX or Solaris). I like the desktop, but miss Word. And I don't see anything like Outlook+Exchange out there, which of course requires...
<P>
WAIT A SECOND!!! Why are they porting desktop Apps? Why not Linux Apps? Linux has a greater marketshare in the server arena, anyway, and Exchange or IIS for Linux would probably ship more units at a greater profit than Office.
<p>
Unless... they don't consider the Linux desktop viable, and just want to make a show to the DOJ (of course, you have to run WinNT BackOffice to support the software on those Linux desktop boxes).
<p>
Very interesting... Office is less useful without BackOffice, and BackOffice needs NT. Office keeps people in MS, and then once they go above just a few users in an office, they start racking up reasons to move to Windows. *Especially* if Microsoft.NET turns out to be way watered down (like most MS final releases) and is just a tighter, nicer BackOffice.
<p>
No, I'm not paranoid, and I'm just happy that I can sed in a bash shell, not pro-Linux or pro-Microsoft, but IF a decision like this has been made at MS, it's after MUCH discussion, and both server and desktop apps were discussed, and you know DAMN well that MS thought long and hard about the long and short term consequences of every action.
<p>
--<br>
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Umm..oops. Shoulda been #include <stdio.h>
Microsoft would be stupid not to have a project like this going on somewhere, but that doesn't mean that it'll ever see the light of day.
Porting office to Linux is a huge project, and Microsoft has to be prepared for the contigency that Linux *does* take off in a market that Office addresses - if not the desktop, then perhaps in some embedded/appliance apps (imagine a dedicated Office appliance a la word processors).
Given the lead time on such a project, they don't want to have to wait a couple of years if they decide to exploit such a market - so they have to do the dev work now.
This doesn't mean anything other than Microsoft is hedging its bets.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
Not to mention how many times I've recieved e-mail documents containg Word or Powerpoint presentations that StarOffice couldn't convert very nicely
I tell all of the people I work with that if they send me an attachment at all, I won't read it (I just recently figured out how to unmime attachments, but it's a pain). I get my mail sent to my system, and I will promptly ignore anything that spits out junk to my console. Every time I get some attached word file I tell the sender to send it again in ASCI. I'm not even going to acknowledge any proprietary formats like that. I get by just fine in my ASCI world, and figure that anybody who needs to make their presentation of data full of bells and whistles is trying to cover up a lack of content. Back on topic, I don't need or want any microsoft software on my computer. Give me vi, TeX, metapost, and fortran, and I'll gladly turn down anything else.
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
That's what Apple thought would happen when Microsoft decided to port Office to the Mac. DId it work? No. Linux is going to have to become a bit more user friendly and have a lot bigger user base before it can REALLY challenge Windows. After all, if you ask the average Windows user why they use Windows, the most common response is "That's what everyone else uses."
I am Slad.
"Microsoft Israel" (where they put together their clone of IBM's MQSeries, which is a pretty successful product) may be doing "a port," but that is a far cry from Putting Boxes On Store Shelves.
It may be that Microsoft is leaking this stuff so as to diminish peoples' committments to the "more nearly native" alternatives of StarOffice, ApplixWare, WordPerfect, and such.
People that decide to wait for whatever Microsoft might release are obviously not buying what the other guys have today. This is how IBM marketed the IBM 360 back in the 1960s, to the great detriment of many other computer manufacturers.
IBM finally did release OS 360 and related hardware, albeit late, expensive, bloated, and buggy.
The parallels should be obvious :-).
Furthermore, the DCOM comments really are important; "modern" MS-Office software depends heavily on COM and COM+ components, which means that the first step to getting MS Office running on Linux would indeed be the port of COM/DCOM/COM+.
And we don't know if this "announcement" represents a product that will actually become available, or whether it is a "vaprous" experiment, intended to use Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt to discourage sales of the competing products...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
This seems to be a knee jerk reaction to the Gnome Foundation. If it is a bridge application, its a bad idea for MS in the operating systems area. Linux people are running from M$ ( data seems to say that they are running from other Unix's more though). But porting office only weaken's the M$ windows hold. The only way it makes any sense is if M$ is split in two, it gives the apps company even more of a market share, but it screws the OS portion. I wont run it either way. Give me a true XML standards based office program instead. And wasn't the horrors of VB scripting on Linux already explored in User Friendly last week?
"My head hurts, My feet stink, and I dont love Jesus." -Jimmy Buffett
It wouldn't just help the Apps company, it's the only way to get Office ported.
If the integration between os and app is so tight, as everybody says, they (the apps company) will have a very hard time to get ports done without the source (and the most interesting details) of the OS libraries like COM, OLE, etc).
...they want to sell software. They have a huge division making products for the Mac. IE5 is comes pre-installed on MAC OSX (dp4 anyway). Which means they already have a port running on BSD albeit using the Aqua UI stuff.
Anyone know if they are using the NeXTSTEP/OpentStep Obj-C stuff here ?
late.
I have a hard time beliving this "entry point" stuff. It seems to me that most linux users have used windows at one time or another, and or using linux INSTEAD of windows. I know I do. Why don't they just sell the silly thing, just like any other software product? Is it really neccessary to levarage the dominance of windows with every corporate move?
See you, space cowboy...
ARG!!!!
--
Evan "As anal as any ohter programmer (sic)"
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
.... where X is large....
You know the old saying:
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
What proof is there that this is more than a rumor? the only source is an annonymous Israeli developer... Does he even work for Mainsoft?
Come on, guys, be serious!
Most Linux users who would want any kind of Office suite used Windows before they changed OS. They knew pretty well what they were loosing/gaining. Now don't come and tell me that giving them M$ on Linux will make them change their minds... It just doesn't make any sense!
I wonder how long it will take for Slashdot to post a disclaimer...
--
--
sig is gone.
Well, this is good for the OS, and gives office users access to a stable os, but if MS Office comes out on Linux, we can kiss any of the other office apps like WordPerfect and Star Office goodby. Honestly, how many people will choose to use something that is "compatible", when the can use the real thing?
Like no-one is going to pirate these apps, and I bet MS wouldn't care untill they have the market, and then they bring the hammer down. (Rings true of netscape, does it not?)
This is news, that's for sure. We are still to find out if it's good or bad.
And restart X and type free.
What you will see is that there is pretty much the same memory allocate. Linux does funny things with memory that you can't base on "free". One thing it does is to cache the file system in "unused memory" so that you can have fast access to files. Ever grep a directory twice. The first time takes forever, then the second time it comes up quickly. This is why.
It's only a leak if it is lost forever. Not if it is being stored for later use. When you restart X, it will reclaim the freed memory of before, not really the same memory, but what's available.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
Not to annoy all of you GPL evangelists, but in all honesty this is by far the best thing! When I ask friends, "Why don't you install Linux?" The answer is always the same. "I've got to go to school, and I don't want to get another computer, and StarOffice sucks because it's slower than Word." Because MS going to be ported its stuff over to Linux, this will actually move more users to switch!
hlag
(at least on my machine)
try this.
Reboot Linux, login, type free.
startx, open xterm, type free.
quit X windows, type free.
Don't open X windows or reboot for a week.
Type free.
It'll still be using 90 megs just to run. Sure, I can kill processes manually, but you can do that on NT too.
- My password is slashdot
I seriously doubt it will be open source...which means that Microsoft's "Linux" software will actually be x86 Linux software. Once again, everyone else gets screwed.
Martee
~~~~~~~~~~
Martee
[/sarcasm]
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
I really doubt that Microsoft would allow another company to port stuff to another platform. As a Mac user, I see tons of software ported to the Mac by third parties, but Microsoft has, for as long back as I can remember, never contracted another company to port an application. But, I could be wrong...
I drank what? - Socrates
With a company the size of Microsoft, developing a piece of software is not the same as making a product. My guess is that this is a bit of an experiment. If it works out well and Linux keeps growing on the desktop, they might market it, but if they had MS Office for Linux ready to go right now, I doubt they would put in on the shelves given the current market. There is a very small market for Linux desktop applications and with the anti-microsoft sentiment around here I don't think it would be warmly recieved by most Linux users.
just because microsoft wants linux users to use Office doesnt mean that we should all rush out and get it. We need to keep in mind that there are other office products out there (Applix, WordPerfect, Star Office) which are doing a good job of improving the linux app base and we shouldnt stop supporting the "little guys". That is of course what Microsoft wants...
Microsoft has been down this road before, and it is nothing new. Examples: JAVA - J++ adds proprietary extensions with the default compiler options - a clear attempt at making a Microsoft 'standard' supercede a JAVA 'standard' (yes, I know that there is technically no JAVA standard per se). Kerberos - Extend this product in such a manner that non-MS clients lose functionality IE - adopt DHTML and DCOM as standards that render thousands of web sites nearly unusable with any other browser Is the next move simply, "MS Office with MS GNOME (note, Office may not work with regular GNOME...)", and extend GNOME/MS GNOME to the point where they basically control that platform as well. MS has never concentrated on dominating an OS as a whole, based on technical competance. They dominate the market by dominating the last 6 feet (that's 3 feet fo monitor cable and 3 ft. of keyboard cable). As long as you have user support, the rest will be a snap. Marc
Of course they will.. msbsod32.dll.o (placed in the /lib directory since they'll need root access to install anyway and it seems like a good place, right?)..
I've actually got a copy of TradeXCH (based off TradeClient I think) by Bynari sitting on my desk as the next step in trying to solve my problem. Unfortunately, it looks like you still need an NT box between your UNIX box and the Exchange Server for it to work (or on the exchange server). When we ordered it, it sounded like this was not necessary.
Other than that I haven't got much deeper. I'm running very low on space on my Linux box and I'm waiting to get another disk before moving on.
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
And you had reason to misinterpret my post - after reading it again it deserves that 0: Flamebait :)
In Dante Alegheri's (sp?) Inferno, the center four regions of hell -- reserved for the worst kind of sinners -- are made up of a gigantic frozen ice plain.
The sinners are frozen into the ice, completely unable to move or respond to external stimuli...
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
And effectively you have reproduced windows stability in linux.
P.S.
Running a pre-production kernel is not a good idea if you don't want crashes. I guess Windows has never been out of the pre-production phase.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
This has to be the MS retaliation to the GNOME foundation announcement. Though porting would probably very effiently crush every existing or about to exist office suite on Linux, I doubt it's anything more than trying to make developers not want to bother and thus leave Office unopposed on any platform, securing the inertia of Windows users everywhere to stay Windows users.
:)
This is all of if this even came from Microsoft, or MainSoft, and not some schmuck
where'd my typewriter go?
That just maybe computers have a use beyond providing them with jobs to program for them. A lower thread says something the long the lines of "Only Idiots use Macs and Windoze" Has it ever occured to you that people use computers to accomplish things, like bookkeeping, Image manipulation, data mining, whatever? The OS is incidental to what you want to accomplish. What you accomplish is the important part. And before you call everyone else idiots, could you do all their jobs? Probably Not. Your job is manipulating computers. Most people's job ARE NOT.
...with the script kiddiez joining in the chorus.
alright....so ms is gonna open their sourfce to people in France and Israel...what are the chances that some Israelie gets in there and bugs up the code? We end up with some MS related linux viruses running around... The only really good thing I am looking for in this is for IE source code to leak out so the *nix devs out there can code us up a good html rendering browser...we all know netscape sucks, it doesn't support html. The new realease of it is better but still okay at best. Lets get some functionality people...
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
The recent User Friendly cartoon about this was pretty funny. For those that didn't see it, one of the characters, Pitr, hacks Linux email clients to that they are vulnerable to the the same VB Script virus hell that Windows users face. It was funny at the time, but maybe it's a sign of things to come....
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
The paperclip!!! I missed that guy!
Now I won't have to reboot into windows in order to get his help.
-----------------------
Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government
Nah, they've used this strategy for years (flooding the market with poorly written MS applications), and the only effect it's had on Windows was to force people to upgrade faster.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
I think that Gates and Scott McNealy of Sun are having a "my pecker is bigger than yours" contest and Bill doesn't want to lose.
I guess I would have prefered some details here. How are they going to port windows stuff to linux? Are they writing libraries for the Win32 API, so basically they could stay relatively native like? Or are they just writing wrapper functions to Xlib? How are they trying to do this?
Gotta take a crack at M$ just for moral reasons.
So in this project, are they shooting for the standard Micro$oft stability, or were they planning on their stuff working in Linux?
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
We don't know if the breakup of MS will hold up in court or not. If I were heading up an application development group at Microsoft, I would at least secretly push to have the the app developed for as many platforms as possible. Perhaps it wouldn't be prudent to let Bill G. or Steve B. know what we were doing, but if our group was reorganized under the direction of an applications company, we wouldn't want to suddenly be presented with a mandate to now port all of the applications to other platforms. This would be in the interests of the applications company if it were truly separate from the OS company. This way if there were a breakup, our group would have already done some of the work that would be ordered.
Wow... there's so much zealotry in this thread its almost scary.
No companies will move people over en-masse to something like StarOffice because work would essentially *stop* as people adjusted to it from MS Office.
If you put MS Office on Linux, you eliminate that problem, and give it a lot more credibility as a desktop OS.
Go out and ask people on the street if they've heard of StarOffice. Now ask them if they've heard of Word.
Which one do you think will win?
Any Zealots who refuse to use it no matter what don't have to, much like Mac users don't have to use Internet Explorer (although it is a good browser on the Mac), and I don't have to use Opera.
Why is it that more choice is a good thing unless one of the options is by Microsoft? With the amount of money Office makes for them, they have every reason to be interested in having it on as many OS's as they possibly can. And by the same idea, the OS's should be happy to have it, since its a big, established, and extremely well known application in Offices around the world.
I just can't quite figure it out... assuming they actually release it and its not full of bugs, whats the downside here?
(and as for the paperclip, am I the only person on the planet who knows about the option to permanently turn it off? As well as the one to not install it at all? Yeesh.)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
How much are the applications going to cost?
Maybe MS will release a new "Kernel Feature"(tm) that needs to be installed to be able to use their "MS Linucks"(tm) applications.
Alright, I had my fun but MS creaping up (in the still of the night, in Israel with a French group) and porting apps - either they wanted to be able to deny the fact or they were planing some dastardly devious plot for "Total World Domination, MS Style".
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
...the developer I spoke with said that the company's plans were not intended as an "emergency escape plan" in the event that Linux overtakes Windows on the desktop. Instead, Microsoft will leverage Linux as an entry point to Windows, "in the same way it does with the Macintosh version of Office."
An entry point to Windoze? How many people here used Linux as an exit point FROM Windows?
I have a sneaking suspicion none of this is going to be open source... even if they are using open source code to make it work.
So will they include a free distro with the software?
hm. the report itself casts this move as the dealer's first free hit. here you go, you can use our apps on your little rouge OS (all the while its merely a way for them to get you hooked and dependent) - which means that linux must not be quite as insigficant, unimportant, or easily ignored as microsoft had previously claimed.
-f
Excellent! After spending millions to buy, steal, or develop software only to DUMP it on the market at no cost for the singular purpose of killing their rivals (Netscape, RealNetworks, the list is infinite) or stealing market share - Microsoft can port their office suite to Linux only to compete against excellent FREE office suites (ala StarOffice) or WordPerfect for linux (already established, if not free.) Given StarOffice's ability to read/write MS Office's various file types, along with it's already respectable list of features, I hope MicroSoft finally receives a dose of it's own medicine - That is, they spend millions of dollars developing and packaging Linux Office only to have it CRUSHED BY FREE APPLICATIONS.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Sorry, a Linux error occurred
Is this the same company/team that made the Slowaris and HP-SUX port of the Internet Exploder? The same team that said that NT is more advanced in terms of process threading? (Heavy Weight Processes, not LWP's)
Seriously, though. If you look here, you'll find that MS worked on a Win32 layer for various UNIX platforms, when building their IE 4.0 port. Using this, it shouldn't be too bad to do a port of Office to UN*X.
--
Microsoft will leverage Linux as an entry point to Windows.
The only way this will work as an entry point _to_ windows is if the Linux versions work like crap.
Linux user w/ microsoft app installed on phone with tech support:
Tech: What seems to be the problem?
Linux user: When I click the mouse, the app crashes
Tech: That's a known bug. You'll have to upgrade the OS to windows. It runs fine on windows...
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
Anyway, all I want is IE5 (doesn't even need to be 5.5 -- 5.01 is fine) for Linux.
As a web application developer using HTML/CSS/XHTML/ECMAScript/XML/XSLT/XSD I cannot make it without IE5.01+. (Yes, I grab the nightly builds of Mozilla but remain unmoved).
IE 5 for Linux!
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
He wasn't complaining about companies making money, or non open source software for linux. He was complaining (as I do frequently) that almost all commercial apps for linux are x86 only. Linux also runs on PPC, 68k, Sparc, Alpha, ARM, Mips, various handhelds, and probably more. Any well written linux app should be able to be recompiled on most of the platforms, yet the companies put out x86 binaries only... This is another benefit of open source, you release the code, people can make it work on other platforms...
Careful with printer drivers?
That is so fucking esoteric to the administrative tasks that are crucial to the network the business depends on.
Windows is like George Bush Sr. Careful not to feed it brocolli.
How about being careful with ports?
How about changing default passwords?
Bugs should be fixed not entered into the administrative manuals.
Administration should not be babysitting. It should be deployment and defense.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Wait a second, what about outlook express complete with VBS support? Are they going to take pitr's idea seriously? Oh no!!!
Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Seriously though, it might not be too bad. For instance, the corporation I work for's e-mail standard is Outlook/Exchange which I'd like to be able to run on Linux (my primary desktop). I haven't found a suitable Outlook clone yet so I can get my mail easily. Incidentally, I tried the fetchmail thing, they don't have NTLM enabled and won't turn it on.
Not to mention how many times I've recieved e-mail documents containg Word or Powerpoint presentations that StarOffice couldn't convert very nicely.
I don't know about it being a bridge over to Windows, however, some good could come out of it. You'd think they would start by helping out the wine project, but then again, thats not M$'s style. They'll probably take the wine code and make it proprietary.
-- A computer without COBOL and Fortran is like a piece of chocolate cake without ketchup and mustard
Go try IE5 on Solaris... Netscape ain't so bad...
After all, what works for Corel it should work for Microsoft, right??
Let's think about how to put some one-way signs on this bridge pointing *our* way.
--
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
So if I do any MS bashing I have to do it in a way that basically makes it look like I'm making myself sick? Damn, this is getting complicated. Oh for the simple days when Slashdot just marked up any MS bashing post as +5 funny, just because.
BTW, I just made myself sick. (is that better?)
Bite my yammer.
Did hell just freeze over or something? How else could this be possible?
l8r
Sean
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Yep, sorry. I misinterpreted what you said, and convoluted it into the usual "Microsoft is the devil so anything I can say bad about them, no matter how unrealisitc goes" posts that appear in this story. I thought you were trying to say that no developers will write software for Linux if there are Microsoft programs available. I still don't wholly agree with you (come on - what percentage of the slashdot crowd will use MS Office for Linux? ... not to mention the large group of people who will just want free software), but your point is well taken. I don't think this is going to kill GNumeric, the GIMP, StarOffice, etc though.
Microsoft know their marketing.
I see a couple of reasons for why they might be doing this:
1. They are anticipating a split of the company, and trying to leverage their share (of the market) with Office.
2. They are trying to FUD the possible StarOffice users, letting them anticipate the release of a never-to-be-product, and gain valuable time.
3. They are seing Linux for what it is, a huge possibility for reaping the work of many, i.e., sell the last 10% of the line (the interface) on top of Linux.
4. They will make a buggy version, "making the grass greener on the other side".
Any of these tactics, combined with a clever marketing scheme, could prove a powerful remedy.
To understand the philosophy, you need to see the smaller attributes of the scheme.
Well, there are of course things to consider like the quasi-defacto file format standard M$ currently enjoys etc. But let's look at other issues. Of course, this won't be open-source, so a lot of us won't want to use it. Beyond that, the bigger question is who would trust this crap on their Linux machine? Do you really want to pay good money for crappy software that is sure to bring you into the same virus paradigm that the rest of the world suffers from now?
you port your apps to alternate OSen first before the competition! If Apple ever pulled thier heads out of thier ass and ported Quicktime including the software to stream it, Quicktime would be a relevent streaming technology! If this story is true it looks like M$'s Mediaplayer will get there first, Apple loses again.
Don't let them know you know that!
MSRP - Tax, Title & Licence Extra Your Milage May Vary
I don't think you are too far off the mark. Many people have claimed exactly the same thing for the early versions of Mac Office. Having used the early versions a little in college I can tell you I was pretty much begging to use vi....
Also this could just be part of the legal posturing surronding the antitrust case...
Or it could just be a preemptive strike against K/Gnome/Star/Applix office suites.
Who knows. However, if I were a betting man I would say the word to go public with this story came from the Ballmer-Gates symbiot.
Myddrin
IF YOU EVER MAKE FLIPPANT REMARKS ABOUT INDUCING VOMITING AGAIN I WILL KICK YOUR ASS
(damn lameness filter. how do the trolls post these all-caps messages, anyway?)
For more information, click here.
They actually have quite a history of apps on the Mac, they produce a majority of the Mac business apps. Back in the middle of the Netscape wars they threatened to stop producing Mac software if Apple didn't side with them and push IE.
I am sick and tired of MS Word and all the MS Word wannabe word processors. I don't want all those features, like automatic capitalization and punctuation. Right now I am working on some highly technical documents which contain many botanical abbreviations as well as many Latin terms. I'm using Star Office at the moment, and even though it has been relatively stable (unlike Word), the features keep getting in the way.
I want a word processor like Frame Maker. Everyone out there seems to think that MS Word is the greatest, but in reality it sucks. Many of the features just don't work properly.
I know that a beta version of Frame Maker is available for Linux, but I dread that the final version will cost $800+ like the other Unix versions.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Why do I get the feeling that Microsoft will probably release their apps (if they release them at all ~cough~vapourware~cough) as x86 binary RPMs for RedHat 6.0+ ?? It just seems like the natural Microsoft way: do it proprietary, screw the users, and alienate people.
Intercarve Networks, LLC
That's not flamebait, this is flamebait:
What the hell happened to the sense of humor of not only the moderators, but also the general readership around here. It seems in the past couple of days any attempt at humor is marked down as -1 Troll or worse. At least my first reply just got ignored until I get told I'm a conspiracy theorist.
BTW, are you suggesting that MS is incapable of doing this for these reasons? Don't forget, MS loves squashing competition in any way they can.
Bite my yammer.
- The Hedge Hypothesis: If M$ is forced to split into M$Windows and M$Apps, this gives the "apps" part of the company a leg up in breaking into a new market.
- The Appeals Hypothesis: Office for Linux could give M$ a new argument to use in the Appeals Court or the Supreme Court: "see, we make Office for these other two operating systems, and we sell decent amounts of them, so we're not really a monopoly." Mac Office alone might not cut it, but Mac Office combined with Linux Office may tip the scales.
- The Standard M$ Hypothesis: Shut down StarOffice, WordPerfect Office, the Gnome Foundation and their backers, etc...what do you bet that M$ gives out a "crippleware" version of Linux Office free?
- The Poison-The-Well Hypothesis: Once you get Linux users (maybe recently switched from Windows) to embrace Office, use this as a lever to move them (back) to Windows. How? Proprietary file formats, faster upgrades available for Windows, etc., etc.
- The FUD-Factor Hypothesis: If Linux Office turns out to be buggy, slow, etc., M$ can turn around and tell developers, "see? Linux really is hard to develop for, you should really develop for Windows instead."
- The If-You-Can't-Beat-'Em-Join-'Em Hypothesis: This is actually a stepping stone towards a Microsoft Linux distro, which will be a replacement for one or more existing M$ operating systems. (Farfetched, I know, but...)
I'm sure you can think of other possibilities.Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
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Nicotine free Amish .sig.
At my last job we were setting up Linux servers, because:
Pentium boxes were available
We could dl RH6.2
Programmers could perform administration
Our NT admins were already overwhelmed with NT problems
Here's a question to put to anyone with extensive background in both: What's the learning curve for each? IMHO Linux is faster on the uptake.
Vote Naked 2000
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
> Microsoft is working ... to port their apps to Linux
And in the anti-virus industry, there was MUCH rejoicing...
- Tim
Why not their games? Their AOE (Age of Empires) games are quite good. Especially AOE2.
That's what I'd like to see.
This is supposed to be great art. So why does it look like a bunch of decapitated naked people? -- Calvin
Seems stupid to me that they're not just getting into the WINE project. That seems like the *fastest* way for Microsoft to get their apps ported to Linux, by supporting the WINE project and pushing that to fruition.
*sigh*
Sometimes economy sucks ass.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
User Friendly? It look just like it.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
please please please say it isn't so!
Word 2.0 was on the MacOS, it's not like they started doing Mac software recently.
Because I'm getting tired of Netscape 4.xx, and the whackyness of Mozilla.
Though, I just hope when they decide to port software over, they do a good job of it.
Just think how much network damage a script running on a unix platform could do once it was launched from the newly ported Outlook.
.vbs support in the next release of the major linux vendors?
Oh God. I just thought of something. Does this mean we'll now have
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Was that just a pig go by my office window?? Man .. I must be seeing things!
I am sick of Netscape crashing on me constantly. Internet Explorer on Linux would be one of the last things that would entice me to keep a Win32 partition.
I'll bet you almost anything that a MS installation would chmod 06711 most of the files and make sure root is the owner.
Buggy code will take down your system and corrupt the fs on the way.
Hi!
anyone already using Linux will know better than to switch from Linux to Windows just for the purpose of "office" apps. In fact; if that's what you are already doing; switching to windows is just fine with me. I would wager that the "real" reasons for porting would be: 1) show the DoJ that they have OS competition and they are willing to work with other OS's. 2) the demographics are clear that PC's (and esp. PC accessories) is dominated by the Average White Male. This is even moreso in Linux (the kiddies aren't running Linux; and neither is your mom). A linux software marketing campaign won't worry about appealing to the family market; or the educational market; "new" computer users; or alot of different groups that you have to reach traditionally.
M period. Fresh, comma
Exactly. Now this will give their ported software something to do. :)
I do not have a signature
Yes and on Linux servers that filter email for Windows clients they're great.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Microsoft lets this "development" leak through channels. Either they blow it completely out their ears, or they do a half a job, then call it quits.
This is the standard MS vaporware strategy. It freezes competition. "Don't bother deploying StarOffice/ThisOffice/ThatOffice, Microsoft is porting theirs."
--The basis of all love is respect
This does not resolve any problems. I would not want to run MS software on my linux box, because it is a) too expensive b) too bloated and c) source is not available.
Other applications that can work with files in MS format are much preferable. That way I can go my own direction with my linux box and still communicate to my office machine [still handcuffed to MS] any everyone else in that situation, without needing to pay for the MS beast out of my own pocket.
all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut
If M$ is already porting their Applications to Mac OS X, which is built on BSD and can handle a lot of Unix/Linux apps with little to no modification to the source, how hard can it be for them to port them the rest of the way to Linux?
They said their reason was to provide a linux -> windows door. I don't buy it do you?
Office is a desktop app, right now Linux has a real small desktop marketshare. I think this is more of an "OH MY GOD STAR OFFICE MIGHT CATCH UP" reaction. (Or other OS office suite). If anything, it will help Linux.
How many people out there are not upgrading to linux because they can't have Office? I'm not saying that this will be good all around, it will just give some people what they need. Of course, I can't see myself using Office on linux.
I mean, really. There is very little motivation for a company like Microsoft to waste it's time on the Linux market.
Chalk it up to yet another hoax on the internet...
Do you really think this isn't a direct response to the "GNOME foundation" announcement? I mean, come on people!
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
The article says they are having a rough time of it, even with the Windows source code. Maybe the strategy will be to flood the market with poorly written Linux applications. People will say stuff like "Office runs bad on Linux, Linux sucks".
I have to admire Bill Gates as the PT Barnum of computing. He intends to use Linux as a gateway to get people interested in Windows. Maybe his Linux desktop will have a link on it that says "This Way To The Egress".
Sure Linux is stable, sure it's free and all that junk. But where's the *showmanship*?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I used MainWin myself for a project last year, and didn't like it one little bit; it's very, very slow, incomplete, buggy, makes no use of any other toolkit, and requires daemons running in the background. Plus MainSoft's sales people are deeply annoying.
Office ported with MainWin would be unusable. Not that I would have recommended using MS products before, but I'd really recommend giving this one a wide berth.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
I know I shouldn't feed you trolls, but what the hell....
Don't play ignorant.
You know that when the guy says GPF, he's talking about BSODs.
Are you suggesting that this piece of code will produce a kernel panic? That would be the nearest equivalent.
You are deliberately missing the point.
Now the're on our turf. Can we play monopoly?. Can I be the shoe??. Should we make "kernel related" problems for microsoft programs, or change the GPL to include a microsoft clause that forbids microsoft from linking to GPL'd libs or using the kernel functions or Xfree without opening their sources??
Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
Let me guess...all Office for Linux components install themselves suid root and have full vbs support? ;)
--
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."
-John Gilmore
I don't think this is very likely. Besides, even if they did do this, it would be easy enough to strace the application to determine whether it was causing such problems intentionally.
--
* And remember, it's spelled N-e-t-s-c-a-p-e, but it's pronounced "Mozilla."
Could this finally be Microsoft saying, "Well folks. It's been a long profitable run. We've had our fun and our Monopolistic nasty tactics, but now people are starting to realize that we haven't been 'innovators'. We're the people who shove a crappy OS down your throat. Time to give in and let Linux dominate." ???? Hmmmm. Somehow I don't thinks so. Then it would really be time for Satan to put on his winter coat.
Consider: Microsoft loses the antitrust case and is split into 2 companies: Windows and MS Apps.
Simple business practice dictates that the non-Windows company must port Office, Works, IE, etc to as many other OSes as possible. Why? They have a responsiblity to their stockholders to increase sharevalue. Developing the same software they already make for other OSes is the most obvious way of increasing market share. No longer will MS Apps' market be constrained by those who use Windows -- it will be ALL computer users who need word processing, spreadsheets, email, browsing, etc... and they will go after it with as much effort as they must to win.
Not everything about splitting up M$ will be good.
The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
...maybe now we'll finally see VBA support for Linux.
2) This is a distraction. Since a OSS project has been undertaken to reverse engineer Windows, given the choice between Linux or some BSD flavor on the scene or some OSS based Windows Clone possibly entering the scene, which OS do you think MS would prefer?
3) This is a very real market driven product. Office 98 for the Mac has made MS money without loosing customers to the Mac. MS would be foolish to ever cancel the product. I know in our Institute, the MIS guy would love to slap office on our community RedHat boxes (yes in the Scientific community, Unix is a desktop and has long been on).
4) MS is just making this up in an attempt to distract from its lawsuit. That way the Judge(s) who may preside over the case next can read about it and think "well, they are porting it to Linux now, why do we have to split them?" and MS would never have to say it outloud.
Personally, given MS's behavior pattern of pre-announcing their annoucements, I take it with a grain of salt. Anyone who believed that NT would be desktop today instead of the upcoming WinME bug fix when MS said that Win98 first edition would be the last was a fool. Anyone who beleives that thier .NET annoucenment is nothing more then a smoke screen to keep people from adapting ISP's using Mozilla to deleiver applications while they whip something up that sort of looks like the .NET (which was vague anyways) is a fool. Just like "WinNT 5 (aka Win2000) is just a few months away" crap they pulled for what 4-5 years. Even if WinINFO isn't wrong, this is not "just around the corner" or "anyday now" this is gonna happen in a VERY long time. By that time, I'll be using ABI word on MacOS X for all of my WP needs, Linux kids will be using some GNU office suite of thier choice, and the rest of the Mac community will be using Apple works (they shipped it on EVERY damn iMac they sold, which is well over half of their shipping machines, eventually people just won't need office anymore)
Burn Hollywood Burn
Would you buy it? I'm not. No way. I won't pay for anything if there is a good alt, like SO. Now that star Office is open, maybe we should take this on princible, and buy linux Q3a. That would prompt more games on linux, and that's were we lack.
Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
I say we force anyone who buys MSOffice for Linux to be on a public list, and ban these people from the community.
All I know is MSOffice isn't worth $500 to me on Windows, which I use very often, it sure ain't going to be worth that to me on Linux. Unless Ma and Pa really start using Linux, I don't see these products going anywhere, because I don't imagine any significant amount of current non MSOffice/nonWindows using Linux users buy it.
Is it just me, or has anyone else figured out that this tact falls directly along M$' usual MO. Notice how everything on this topic was always hush-hush because it would damage M$' view in the marketplace that it might feel threatened by Linux, and thereby an appearant weakness. But it's allowance of this "leak" happens to come directly on the heels of a *nix industry-wide push to create a free office suite for, not just Linux, but Solaris, HP-UX and AIX as well, fully compatible with M$'s proprietary office formats. Boys and girls... can you say FUD?
This depends, and, quite frankly, is FUD all over. WINE is not the first API-porting effort in the world, and some previous efforts have been Microsoft-sanctioned (remember the Solaris port of IE?)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
From the article:
The complicated undertaking, which has been a work in progress for over a year, requires the companies to map native Win32 API calls to the Linux equivalents so that Windows applications will run normally in that environment.
From the WineHQ web page:
Wine is an implementation of the Windows 3.x and Win32 APIs on top of X and Unix. Think of Wine as a Windows compatibility layer. Wine provides both a development toolkit (Winelib) for porting Windows sources to Unix and a program loader, allowing unmodified Windows 3.1/95/NT binaries to run under Intel Unixes.
Either this is FUD or M$ is trying to rewrite Wine without that nasty GPL so they can claim in 2008 that they invented it after years and years of research.
hmmmm?
MS's goal is to destabilize linux by embracing and supporting it... to corrupt it from within. Then they'll point and say, "Look, it's not even as stable as Windows".
All part of The Plan. Just like Bill Clinton's entire career was just a part of the ultimate illuminati plan to get Hilary Clinton into office.
I also wonder how many people will actually use Office on Linux... if someone was willing to pay the Microsoft tax and buy Office, wouldn't they be just as likely to buy Windows as well?
In addition, most people who use Linux do so because they don't like Microsoft (okay, it's a generalization). So why would they use MS Office when StarOffice, Applix, etc exist? Compatibility? Okay, but that's not going to be enough sales to justify the expense of porting Office to Linux. Most people who want compatibility will run Windows on the desktop. Not to mention the fact that retraining the users for a desktop Linux environment would be expensive. And if a user is being trained for Linux and have not been previously trained for MS software, why use Office at all? Just train them for any of the already-available office apps for Linux.
Maybe it's all a ploy in case the breakup goes through.
Or, maybe it's an attempt by Microsoft to bring the macroviruses to Linux!
An earlier article posted here
h tml
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/07/20/1255251.s
brought up the issue that UNIX in general, lacks a set of reusable code for various applications. We know that both the GNOME and KDE fronts are working hard to achieve this. With Microsoft working on porting their applications, won't this mean they will have to develop a standard set of reusable code for LINUX? Could this be a blessing in disguise?
This is probably a pre-emptive action based on the assumption that the company will be split by the justice department. It won't particularly hurt the OS company, but will definitely help the Apps company.
The Applications company will want to have access to *all* markets. They see the writing on the wall with all the new and improved desktop initiatives in the Unix world, and figure that there is going to be some erosion of market share for the Windows desktop.
They probably are also trageting us geeks who have to do a lot of document shuffling for work. We'll be able to have our cake, and read Word documents too. They figure IS managers will say "Hey, it's guaranteed to be compatible, since it's Office."
Still, it'll be hard to compete with free. Star Office is pretty good!
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bukra fil mish mish
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Monitor the Web, or Track your site!
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
This makes sense, it really does. Look at the following, and I think you'll see where I am coming from.
1. PR. The whole monopoly thing is starting to get to them. They face formal scrutiny in the US, Europe and India. If they do this, they can look and say "but we really do have competition". "We did a port at X number of millions of dollars to take advantage of this competitive market".
2. They are a business, something that a lot of people seem to forget. If they can make money on this up and coming OS (now that it is starting to break out of geekdom), why not? People seem to forget that they also make Office (and other products) for the Mac.
3. StarOffice. People use and buy Office (which is far more profitable for them than their OS's), because it is the defacto standard. Aside from a few die-hard types, it is accepted worldwide (except for China - different standard). StarOffice is being given away for free, and MS doesn't want people to get in the "habit" of using something else. Remember they considered Sun's intro into the browser market seriously enough to spend half a billion dollars (US DOJ figure) to combat it.
4. They need to show the world that they can play nice. MS settled the lawsuit with Mac based on a cash investment (non voting stock) and a willingness to make MS Office 98. Without MS Office 98 (pre iMac), it is was widely considered that Apple would have gone belly up. MS had more to risk by Apple going belly up than Apple did. Take Apple out of the picture at that time, and their would be no perceivable possible competition (Linux was not nearly as popular than, keep in mind.)
5. Market penetration. There are *nix shops that don't use MS. Once you port to Linux, it isn't that great of a leap to port to *nix. MS wants these markets, and this is a way to gain a foothold there. Regardless of what you think about the company, this would sell like crazy.
6. Microsoft.Net. This is another way to sell monthly licenses. Once people start to see some of the "features" that work with Office, they will want access to the rest of the features. It's the "collection" syndrome, people can't stand to know something is available, and they don't have it. Enough users start to demand features that would work with say, MS Exchange 2000, and management just might listen.
7. They are losing some customers to Linux. A lot of these people despise the MS OS's, but like the office suite. If they can see a familiar face in their new unfamiliar OS, many people would jump at the chance. I think that a significant number of the people who are former windows users would say that office is the 1 thing they miss most.
8. If they are building MSLinux (which they certainly could), this would be a way to get people to switch to "their" flavor of Linux. Make the desktop similiar to Windows, maintain the "look and feel" that someone who has used Windows knows, and they could easily become bigger than Redhat. They maintain their standards and control, and the masses would flock. Before you bash this statement, look at the first fundamental rule of marketing. Brand recognition is what counts. It is well established that the masses will flock to a brand that they know. Remember this would not be ported for the geeks that use Linux, this would be ported for the masses.
After all, the only reason Linux doesn't ever have blue screens is because when it crashes, it never tells you why.
A simple trap handler in the kernel will solve that. Then you could customize your Linux install to allow for Red or Green screens of death as well.
tj
I don't think anybody would use a microsoft linux distribution. nobody who already uses linux would at the very least. newcomers would ask their friends who use linux already which distribution they should use, and would be directed away from microsofts version. it wouldn't really be a big deal.
Thanks, but you're kinda late. Sig 11 already changed his User Bio - it was to evident. For those who don't know it said something like "There aren't lots of things money can't buy. For the rest there is Karma."
--
"No se rinde el gallo rojo, sólo cuando ya está muerto."
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
"What do you mean i got rooted by my research paper?"
-motardo
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
I hate the thought of having MS apps on my box,everything went far better since I left windoze... Considering the normal behaviour of MS, which is purposely to disturb standards and protocols, I think we all have a responsability to refuse. If I loose the excusion of not beeing able to read word documents, I may have to give up IT and start fishing.
Then, start to make it suck and fall well behind the Windows version, forcing more and more users to switch over as they lose support. Finally, discontinue it altogether, leaving Linux users with nothing at all (when now they have alternatives), and crush all possibility of Linux reaching the desktop any time soon.
For that matter, I'm truly surprised that there's no MS Linux distribution, which they would push and market heavily until Red Hat, Corel, and others went out of business, all other distros were ignored, and they were the only game in town (or at least had gathered like 97%+ of the market share). Then, again, just dump the damn thing. Kill it off, and leave everyone sucking wind. While it may not kill Linux off altogether, it would set the effort back a decade or so, and give MS Winblows the opportunity to actually grow into a stable OS that works sometimes, and cement an even greater share of the market.
Please Rate my comment (and help support Fre
Why would anyone want to run M$ Office on Linux? Personally, I don't even want to run it on Windows.
.DOC files and Star Office is good. Both are pretty solid (although Corel is slow) products and one is even free! Who is going to spend money on this?
.NET stuff. Deploy your workplace with Linux boxes with a Citrix client and run Office off an NT or Citrix Terminal Server.
Corel WordPerfect seems to do fine converting
What sense would it make to run Office native? Wait for the
I really can't see M$ trying to make any money off this unless it is a big Embrace & Extend operation.
Viv
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Viv
Gmail invites for ip
I look forward to seeing Excel crash Linux, any other running app, and itself on yet another operating system! Hooray for Microsoft! Bill's da man!
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
If Linux does indeed catch on with the desktop crowd, what will stop Microsoft from releasing it's own version? And mayhap release an Office/IE/Outlook port that works wonderfully with the Win side of the network?
Or even a Linux that is incompatible with other Lini... can they be that evil? (yes)
...here on the planet earth people have seen that MSFT has this thing called a track record. Check into it sometime, and you will learn not to trust them, too.
As if FreeBSD was taken over by Apple by creating MacOS X.