MS Office on Linux

Story: Microsoft Fails to ImpressTotal Replies: 5
Author Content
twickline

Jul 02, 2010
1:59 AM EDT
Linux users can run MS Office and other Windows Office apps now. All they need to do is spend a little money on CrossOver Office or Bordeaux. And with the Pro version of CrossOver Office you also get CXGames for free.

CodeWeavers : http://www.codeweavers.com/products/?ad=65 Bordeaux : http://www.bordeauxgroup.com/
herzeleid

Jul 02, 2010
4:17 AM EDT
I've been using crossover office at work - best $39 I ever spent. Keeps me from having to bother with a 'doze vm, when I need to look at a visio drawing or edit a baroque ms word doc. Just fire up ms office apps from the crossover office menu, and it works fine.
phsolide

Jul 02, 2010
8:20 AM EDT
I seem to recall that MSFT sold (at least) "Word" for Solaris, and yes, it was a native Solaris app.

I bet they've got something like a "portability" layer in it that wouldn't take too long to port to Linux.

Or, maybe not. Respected Cambridge Scientist Ross Anderson has a paper that claims MSFT has tried to re-write "Word" from scratch a few times, and failed. Anderson says "Word" is this giant, organic sprawl of code, that nothing can really, truly "replace" it, that you can only hope to emulate it in 80% of the cases.
gus3

Jul 02, 2010
10:22 AM EDT
Quoting:you can only hope to emulate it in 80% of the cases.
Even on Windows.
tuxchick

Jul 02, 2010
10:30 AM EDT
MS failing at writing actual code is nothing new. I get frustrated with the continual parade of rip-and-replace in Linux, but usually that results in better software.
herzeleid

Jul 02, 2010
3:11 PM EDT
If their "word for solaris" is anything like the disaster that was internet explorer for solaris, then thanks but no thanks.

I ran solaris/sparc on the desktop for 18 months or so when I first started at my current sysadmin gig back in the 90s, and had to try it out, just for gits and shiggles - after all, microsoft had proudly and arrogantly claimed to be "bringing the internet to unix" (yeah right, as if!)

First of all, microsoft never ported anything to unix, they wouldn't know how; they used some sort of compatibility library that ostensibly allowed windows apps to be recompiled for unix platforms, but like a lot of good ideas, it might have sounded good in theory, but in practice it was a buggy, molasses-like, crash prone app that I couldn't stand to use for more than a few minutes before wiping it from the disk and gratefully going back to netscape.

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