Office XP now runs on Linux

The CodeWeavers package now supports the full Office XP suite, with the exception of Outlook XP and Access XP. Outlook 2000 and Access 2000 are supported.

The package plugs in to the standard Gnome or KDE Linux Graphical User Interfaces. Codeweavers claims seamless interoperability between the Microsoft Office suite and the free operating system.

"Once installed, your application will integrate directly with your Gnome or KDE environment," the company's Web site says.

The Cross Over Office package is not open source. However it is priced at around US$55 (A$89) which is significantly cheaper than the A$599 asking price for Windows XP Professional.

The package supports more than just Microsoft products. Adobe Photoshop 7.0 is supported, as is Lotus Notes and Intuit's Quicken.

Other projects have taken dead aim at Microsoft's market share before, but they've targeted applications, not the actual underlying operating system.

The OpenOffice.org office suite is an open source package that aims for interoperability through the use of an XML file format. The OpenOffice suite is clocking up around 350,000 downloads a week, across all supported platforms, which include Linux, Mac OS and Windows.

Microsoft Australia were unable to comment at the time of writing.

Cross Over Office runs on all major Linux distributions.

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Is this the light at the end o ...Fenn -- 23/04/03

Is this the light at the end of the Tunnel?
Could this be the end of Windows as we know it?

Lets hope so

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Hey boofhead, It might cost AU ...Anonymous -- 23/04/03

Hey boofhead,

It might cost AU$89, but you still have to pay M$ over $1000 for their expensive bugridden software.

It's still a lot more to pay than for Star/Open Office.

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My tip is that the likely outc ...Anonymous -- 23/04/03

My tip is that the likely outcome (response)from Microsoft will be that the Office license conditions will be altered to explicitly preclude you from running Office on Linux. The code will then be altered and the hooks will link ONLY to MS structured code. The other option will be to up the rent on the Office licence to compensate. MS will win, not *nix..............

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To Anonymous from Adelaide, yo ...Con Zymaris -- 24/04/03

To Anonymous from Adelaide, you state:

"My tip is that the likely outcome (response)from Microsoft will be that the Office license conditions will be altered to explicitly preclude you from running Office on Linux. The code will then be altered and the hooks will link ONLY to MS structured code. The other option will be to up the rent on the Office licence to compensate. MS will win, not *nix.............."

I think that many believe this kind of scenario. However, keep in mind that the US government has something called the Sherman Act, which makes it _illegal_ for a vendor to tie one product solely to a product on which they have a monopoly. Microsoft has a monopoly in the desktop, so, ipso facto, this abuse which you denote, would imply that tying MS Office to Windows only, would be illegal, and almost certainly precipitate another multi-year courtcase againt the US DoJ.

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