Microsoft Looking At Office For Linux In 2014

[yogi_berra]

How reliable can this rumor be ?

Office for Android? Sure, why not?

[AGui]

How reliable can this rumor be ? There were no developper from Microsoft at Fosdem as far as I know. At best, if it is true, someone heard it from a friend working at Microsoft. More likely, someone working at Microsoft (but not in the MS Office team) said to a friend that with Valve pushing Linux, they might consider porting MS Office to it if it is a success. And by the time the rumor reached Michael's hears, they had a native port on the way... I don't trust that at all.

[Apopas]

And no it won't be open sourced but only zealots care about that.

Generalizations, is rarely a good thing.

[YaPeL]

Photoshop when?

[RussianNeuroMancer]

"When Microsoft writes an application for Linux, I've Won." - Linus Torvalds

So he won already, because there is Skype.

[bwat47]

Microsoft's real moneymaker has always been office. If they see linux become viable for the desktop then I could see them doing this, to make sure they lock as many people as possible into their office ecosystem.

[frantaylor]

I guess this is good, but I'll stick to LibreOffice, thank you.

MS Office on Linux will push the LibreOffice developers to get their act in gear. Competition works both ways. Yay!

Office is already running on BSD (OSX) so the Linux port should not be too hard. It's already running in two different GUI environments, adding a third would not be a stretch.

Who knows they could be maintaining an internal port to linux all along without releasing it, just preparing for the inevitable. They can just whip back the curtain at the appropriate moment. It would not be the first time for such a thing. Apple maintained an Intel port for years before they made their public announcement. Sun had a port of Solaris running on intel since '386 days but it went internal for many years after the "Sun 386i" debacle.

[Ericg]

Thorvalds once said something like "when Microsoft starts writing software for Linux, I have won". I think he basically meant that he was not very interested in market shares etc, but that this would be a recognition that the platform had become important. Unfortunately I do not remember the context of the above standing quote.

"When Microsoft writes an application for Linux, I've Won." - Linus Torvalds

Just wanted to get that out before the upcoming "oh no! Microsoft is killing Linux!" posts.

It's rather opposite. They know they can't win in the long run, so they have to change their strategy.

[staalmannen]

Thorvalds once said...

Thorvalds once said something like "when Microsoft starts writing software for Linux, I have won". I think he basically meant that he was not very interested in market shares etc, but that this would be a recognition that the platform had become important. Unfortunately I do not remember the context of the above standing quote.