Codeweavers Releases Crossover Office

rleyton writes "Codeweavers have just announced Crossover Office, a Wine derivitive which allows MS-Office 97 & 2000 products as well as Lotus Notes to run without a Windows OS License. If it's as cool as the Crossover plugin product, then it could mean a significant step forward in Wine's progress." NewsForge got hold of a final beta copy a couple of days ago and has a Crossover Office review up already, and DesktopLinux.com has one too. This looks pretty cool, yes. Now if a PHB tells you can't run Linux, because you need Office - tell him you'll save money by not needing a Windows license, and call still use Office.

Comments

Re:Why the timeline?

[Da Schmiz]

all that needs to be done is support an API that is now almost 7 years old.

Yeah, that's all. Unfortunately, Windows95 was one of the most klugdy, messed-up, weird, undocumented OSs of all time. (Exceeded only by successive versions of Windows, such as Win98 and WinME.)

You can bet that Microsoft hasn't been helping the WINE coders any, by supplying decent documentation for instance. Reverse engineering something as complex as Windows is no mean feat. And programs like Office and IE 4+ essentially patch the OS when they're installed, by inserting DLLs and other code deep into the system. Running WinHelloWorld.exe is one thing; running IExplore.exe is something entirely different.

Think back: how many times did Microsoft have to push back the release date of Windows 95? And they're Microsoft, for goodness sake, the guys with a gazillion programmers chained to desks in the subterranian levels of Big Bill's Zoo of Death(tm). I think WINE is making decent progress as it is.

Of course, I wouldn't complain if they got the job done sooner rather than later...

(VM Ware anyone!).

Nope. VMWare only implements the BIOS and a framework to proxy between Windows and the PCI, IDE, etc. busses. VMWare doesn't emulate Windows, it runs Windows. No mean feat, either, but it's a totally different approach.