States Filing Alternate Remedy Proposal for MS Anti-Trust Case

cbull writes: "News.com reports that 9 states and the District of Columbia will be filing an alternate remedy proposal in the Microsoft case later today. This would close some of the loopholes, better define middleware, require Microsoft to continue Office development for Macintosh and to develop a version of Office for Linux, among other things." There's also a Cringely column about the case. Somehow the phrase "Microsoft Office for Linux" has gotten people all fired up. Do you really want a version of Office for Linux? Really?

Comments

They make a product..why force them?

[wo1verin3]

Why would we force them to make a product for Linux? We know it won't be open source, how will this help the community, a community built on ideals which Microsoft doesn't share.

Re:They make a product..why force them?

[FFFish]

"How will this help the community"?!?

Tell me how it will *hurt* the community!

You end up with the one application that keeps everyone tied to Windows. Julee down in clerical doesn't give a rat's ass what OS she's using: she doesn't use an OS, she uses software applications -- namely, Word and Excel.

This means the boss can swing to Linux without having to retrain her. His investment in her skills, which have taken years to develop, aren't going to get thrown out the window. By gosh, maybe he'll be a little amenable to switching to Linux now!

Quit trying to be isolationist. That's the game Microsoft plays. Play bigger: encourage everyone to come to Linux.

NO.....

[Archfeld]

but what would be nice was FILE TYPE standards for say 5 years. Give someone else a chance to break into the market. With 5 years lead time a big enough customer base would develop to make M$ think twice about arbitrarily changing it and forcing upgrade, there-by losing LOTS of customers.

Interesting

[Bert Peers]

So they have a monopoly on Windows, and for punishment, they should really be able to extend that monopoly to other OSes ?

Interesting.

I suppose the judges' next call will be that DeCSS should really be available on Windows, and be able to decrypt the latest WMF too.

Antitrusts Greatest Hits

[JMZero]

Here's an interesting article on Reason on antitrust workings through the ages. It gives me sort of a different perspective on MS's antitrust woes.

I think the solution to the MS problem is to regulate their real problem behavior. Don't let them do illegal things. Don't let them sign crazy exclusive deals. Don't let them control (down to a single icon) exactly what's installed on a machine.

Making MS release Office for Linux is a step down the wrong road. And what do you do when it's crappy? Force them to make it better?

Re:What the article says

[bwalling]

I think this is a key point, because MS would deliberately submarine the project. They would release a buggy, crippled product and blame the platform. MS carries a lot of weight with public opinion, so that would just end up being bad for whatever platform they did that to.

Office on Linux ... the sleeper hit?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I for one would welcome MS Office for Linux. There's absolutely no way I'd use it myself, but think of the possibilities:

• Serve up MS Office to X-based thin clients, without the need for Terminal Server licensing and/or Citrix licensing, both which consume huge amounts of money.
• Users of MS Office for Linux are using Linux!!! Office on Linux is one step away from Microsoft.
• Finally, and I think this is important ... people would use it, and as a result it would force Microsoft to realize that Linux has desktop potential. Even if they wanted to kill the product later on, they wouldn't be able to do it easily, because the bean counters would say "Hey, this product is selling very well, why stop it?"

Remember, with no platform advantage, Microsoft has to play fair in the Linux world. Let them come. Let them play on the level playing field. The sooner this happens, the sooner the world can abandon Windows.