Microsoft denies Linux Office interest

crow writes "The Boston Globe columnist who started the rumor that Microsoft is porting Office to Linux now has a column where he reports that Microsoft claims it has no efforts underway to port Office to Linux. In fact, Microsoft claims that there has been no interest from customers about Office for Linux. However, Microsoft now has an email address where people can comment about Microsoft applications in regards to Linux: linuxq@microsoft.com " Quite frankly, I'll be happy man if I never have to see that little paper clip again. Ever.

Comments

Office sucks and always has---let's be realistic

[Anonymous Coward]

MS Office's problems run very deep indeed, and I don't think folks should be faulted for over-reacting to what is unquestionably one of the buggiest major products extant.

As just one example, here are the results of my research into why we were having trouble translating footnotes and endnotes between Word and WordPerfect. If you check the articles, the same bugs have been "known issues" in Word since version 2.0, which basically means that any office that really needs to work with footnotes or endnotes (like the entire legal and academic communities) made the wrong choice if they chose Word.

UNREPAIRED FOOTNOTE AND ENDNOTE BUGS IN MS WORD ITSELF
(no file conversion from other word processor formats involved):

WD: Footnote moved to next page
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q118/5/86

WD: Continuous Section Break with Footnotes Causes Page Break
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q94/9/75

WD: Footnote Text Displayed, Printed on Top of Footer
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q158/6/25

WD: Custom Footnotes Disappear After Spell Check
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q146/2/42.asp

WD: Footnote References Renumbered in Word Tables
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q193/1/91

UNREPAIRED PROBLEMS CONVERTING WORDPERFECT ENDNOTES TO MS WORD USING MICROSOFT'S FILE CONVERTER:

WD: Endnote Styles Not Applied to Converted WordPerfectEndnotes
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q113/0/55

WD6X: WordPerfect Endnote Number Not Converted Correctly to Word (fixed
in Word 6.0c) http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q 113/0/50

WD: Converted WordPerfect Endnote Text Cannot Be Edited in Word
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q113/0/49

WD: WordPerfect 6.X Import Converter Limitations for Word 6.x/7.0
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q130/1/99

WD: WordPerfect 5.x Import Converter Limitations for Word 6.x/7.0
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q131/0/40

MICROSOFT WORD BUGFIX AND FEATURE LIMITATION LISTS:

The following articles list Microsoft Word bug fixes and feature limitations. They are
included to aid in determining whether footnote or endnote conversion issues of importance have been repaired in later MS Word versions.

WD6x: WordPerfect 5.x Converter Enhancements in 6.x Kit Release
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q132/2/56

WD6x: WordPerfect 5.x Converter Enhancements in WinWord 6.0c
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /q120/4/62

Of97: Microsoft's main list of WordPerfect 6/7/8 formatting commands that either do not
convert because Office 97 has no comparable feature or that convert imperfectly.
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles /Q157/0/89

pem@televar.com

MS Office can't handle large documents

[Jerky McNaughty]

Here at work we have numerous documents done in MS Word that are around 600 pages. Do you have any idea how long it takes Word to repagniate 600 pages? Word seems to spontaneously repaginate every few minutes, even if you're in the middle of typing. Other groups here use FrameMaker or Interleaf.

MS Word may be fine for small (i.e., under 50 pages) documents, but for anything big, I'll ALWAYS stick with LaTeX + Xy-Pic + xfig---you can't beat those for reliability, portability, and speed. I work on the same documents at home (Linux) and work (Windows "Blue Screen" NT) with LaTeX. I wouldn't trust MS to actually make a Linux version truly interoperable with a Windows version, they couldn't do it with MS Office for the Mac.

I don't expect much from a company who writes cdplayer.exe for NT which crashes on my often. Damn you Microsoft, damn you all!

Apps not OS

[BadlandZ]

I would probably consider buying MSOffice for Linux, just for compatability sake for others where I work. It's not thier applications I dislike, it's there OS. I would probably be supportive if MS dumped the OS stuff or split it off into a sepreate comapany. MS Office is fairly "standard" and would make integrating Linux into corporate and educational environments a lot easier today.

I use Applix and WP8 now, and although they are ok, since I travel a bit, it does cause problems. If I have to ftp home for a file, it's almost impossable to convert to MSOffice (which is ususally the only thing avaliable on the road in places like Kinkos or something). So, you have to remember to convert before you leave, and then, the conversions never look quite as good as the original.

MS Office is ok, I HATE how it can't seem to convert HTML to a .doc in it. MS Office becoming an HTML editor was a LAME move in my opinion. But, untill a GNU Office suite matures more, I think MS Office isn't really THAT bad.

Please Don't Play Along With This Stunt

[nwv]

First of all, "asking for Linux community input"
is an obvious way to manipulate the opinions of
the (loosely-defined) Linux community. Often it's
an honest request for input; often only partly so,
or not at all.

Second, Microsoft can use a large response as
ammunition to support the story that Linux isn't
a serious business platform because it doesn't
have Microsoft apps.

Third, if Microsoft *does* get Office on Linux, it
will use that as leverage to kill other possible
application solutions, and then will further use
Office as a foothold to get proprietary frameworks
atop Linux. It will be difficult (though not
impossible) to prevent that. Isn't this kind of
monopoly leverage what many Linux people have been
trying to avoid?

(BTW, I have talked with Simson Garfinkel several
times, and he seems like a good guy, but I think
he's inadvertently helping Microsoft more than
Linux this time.)

Of course, they _can't_ support Linux.

[sammy baby]

Microsoft is walking the thinnest line on this one (with apologies to The Dead Milkmen). On the one hand, they have to make nice to the anti-trust folks and say, "No, really, Microsoft doesn't have monopoly power. Just look at the little upstart OS Linux, ready to come and eat our lunch." On the other hand, the corporate message is made pretty clear by "pundits" like Ed Muth:

The problem with that is there are fewer applications available for Linux, there's no long-term development road map, and there's a higher technical risk in using it.

What this really means: The problem with Linux is that Microsoft Office isn't available for it, there's no FUD team hyping it, and MS tech support (such as it is) won't bail you out if you get yourself in trouble with it.

If Microsoft doesn't want to make a seriously embarassing admission - namely, that there are valuable applications out there for Linux - they can't afford to consider Linux as a development platform, unless they don't consider Office to be an application with a signifigantly large following.

Need Office files, not Office apps

[Industrial Disease]

The problem isn't that people necessarily need to use Microsoft Office, it's that they are likely to need to open Office files that someone else has created. As much as I might wish otherwise, Microsoft Office is likely to be the dominant office suite for some time to come. Even happy Linux users may have to annotate Word docs from clients, update Excel spreadsheets from cow orkers, and pretend to have looked at Powerpoint presentations from suits. I've still got one foot in Windows land myself, and have yet to work with any Linux office apps. What kind of filters are available for Applix, WordPerfect, etc. to import and export Microsoft's various moving target file formats? Also, can they cope with embedded stuff, like a chunk of Excel spreadsheet in a Word doc? Compatiblity with existing files is probably a bigger obstacle to acceptance of alternative office suites than any kind of UI or training issues.

MS BOB

[TuxDaddy]

I think I'm going to email linuxq@microsoft.com to ask if they'll port MS BOB to Linux.