Hell froze over: Office for Linux Possible

[dmroeder]

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/h...e-considering-office-for-linux-release-327921

What do you guys think about this?

Personally I think it's laughable. I've read some of the stuff that MS has said about Linux (calling it a plague on intellectual property). I don't do highly complicated stuff with Office products, so LibreOffice works for me. If I had a choice I'd use it at work too instead of MS Office too.

Does anyone here find limitations in the Office clones that make it so you would need MS Office? I have a hard time panning out, but maybe I'm wrong. Seems like a strange business move unless it's really cheap or free. What do I know though.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

#1, I'll believe it when I see it.
#2, The only thing about the Opensource clones that I miss on occasion is that they don't run the VBA scripts that some spreadsheets include. Outside of that I can live without an official Microsoft offering.

 

[onichikun]

Hmm, not sure I would trust office on Linux. They have enough bugs in their software natively on Windows. (I was talking to a Microsoft dev at a conferences and they even have inside jokes about it!)

I prefer Latex, R and Inkscape. That's more power than office anyways

 

[sam_p_lay]

I don't recall ever coming across bugs in Microsoft Office, Open Office or Libre Office in Windows, except for the occasional slight text rendering corruption when scrolling in Open/Libre.

 

[dmroeder]

I wouldn't have any issue trusting MS to make a decent product for Linux, most of their software is actually pretty well done in my opinion. Although maybe my standards have been lowered by some of the industrial software that I use for work.

I just can't see much of a market IMO. If they sold it for $40 maybe, but I can't imagine that many people shelling out $300 (or whatever it costs) when there are two good free options available.

I've never been on the anti-MS bandwagon but on one hand I hope it goes through and it is rejected by the Linux community. Mostly from seeing interviews with Steve Ballmer run his giant mouth over the years about Linux (calling it a plague on intellectual property). On the other hand, maybe it could help Linux.

But I guess as ex_bubblehead said: we'll believe it when we see it...

 

[sam_p_lay]

I just can't see much of a market IMO. If they sold it for $40 maybe, but I can't imagine that many people shelling out $300 (or whatever it costs) when there are two good free options available.

Big +1 to that. And same reason I can't see Linux ever becoming huge for gaming - the environment is the polar opposite of the closed-source paid-for games that developers aren't bringing to the system (except Valve). I think Microsoft Office is an excellent product, but I'm not sure what extras it could deliver that would make it worth paying money for over Libre Office. It's not like there's any major problems with Libre (at least none I'm aware of, but I only use pretty basic functionality anyway).

 

[dmroeder]

I agree with you on gaming, but that I do hope takes off, or at least gets better. I don't consider myself a gamer, but I do love me some Counter-Strike. I have been super excited to be able to play CS:Source on Linux. Valve seems pretty committed with their whole SteamBox project. I have a hard time seeing it being wildly successful, but I hope it gets some traction.

 

[sam_p_lay]

It'll be interesting to see how it goes, and to see which distributions get official support. Not sure about Valve's motivation, just seems like Newell is throwing his toys out of the pram because he doesn't like Windows 8. Whatever their reasons though, I'm interested in other knock-on effects it has on Linux in general.

For one thing, it's obviously gonna bring Linux to people's attention more (just like Office for Linux if it happens). Could also result in a sudden increase in interest in lightweight DEs and their impact on framerates (Phoronix has some interesting stuff there). Could be good for nVidia also, since their Linux drivers run so much better than Catalyst for Linux (which takes a major framerate hit relative to the same hardware under Windows).

And it may recharge Canonical's efforts in really ironing out as many bugs and glitches as they possibly can to show Linux in its best possible light. That "thousand tiny cuts" initiative of their's (or whatever they called it) was really a step in the right direction - eliminate bugs first and then worry about adding new features second.