Re: MS Office for Linux

["Eric M. Bennett" <ericb@pobox.com>]

Stan Johnson wrote:

>Makes sense. How else to prevent Corel/Word Perfect from possibly
>thriving, and Star Office from building up installed base?
>
>They can't just change the OS to make it incompatible, after all!!!
...
>I expect their release will be some sort of OfficeLite, to try to create a
>perceived need to use the full application suite for full functionality. On
>WindowsXXX of course...

I wonder exactly how much of it they are going to port.

The Mac version of Office does not include Access, for example... we might
expect Word and Excel, since Corel is apparently planning to port Quattro
to Linux.  But beyond that, there is not a mainstream presentation package
being ported to Linux, so presumably they would feel no pressure to port
PowerPoint.  Ditto for Access.


I also wonder if they have made any progress on this or whether this is
just a FUD leak and they actually have no intention of releasing a Linux
version of Office at any point in the next two or three years.  If a FUD
leak keeps people from buying Corel's Linux products, it serves the same
effect with a lot less effort.



--
Eric Bennett ( http://www.pobox.com/~ericb/ )
Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology, Cornell University
377 Olin Chemistry Lab

A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
-  Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery