Microsoft: No Office on Linux 'at this time'

Microsoft has no plans to tweak its Office productivity suite for Linux anytime soon, despite the growing popularity of open source on the desktop, according to a company executive.

Speaking at the LinuxWorld conference in London on Wednesday, Nick McGrath, Microsoft's head of platform strategy, said that the software maker had no intention of porting Office to any of the Linux desktop distributions.

"Microsoft is 100 percent focused on Windows: We have invested billions of dollars in it. We have created Office for the Mac but--and I thought I had been clear on this already when I said 'No'--we have no plans at this time to build Office on Linux," he said.

McGrath made the comments as part of a LinuxWorld panel debate headlined "Where is the Innovation? Does free software development lead to proprietary, or is it the other way round?"

The Microsoft executive was replying to a question from a member of the audience, which seemed to be made up mostly of open-source advocates. The audience member noted that Microsoft had ported Office to Apple Computer's Macintosh, to tap into the Mac desktop market, and asked why would it not to the same for the Linux desktop.

Linux desktop software is rapidly gaining on the Apple operating system's small share of the market. Analysts disagree over how the market for operating systems on desktops and laptops is carved up, but agree that Microsoft's share is above 90 percent. Linux has been reported to have a market share of upwards of 3 percent, and there has been speculation that Apple's market share could reach 5 percent in 2005, on the back of the success of the iPod music player.

Eric Raymond, a prominent figure in the open-source community, told ZDNet UK recently that a release of Office for Linux isn't even that desirable, since alternatives such as StarOffice and OpenOffice.org are already available.

"The important move would be to document all (Microsoft's) file formats and communications protocols, make the documentation publicly available, and make a binding promise not to sue or harass people who write open-source software to interoperate," Raymond said.

Matt Asay, the director for Linux Business Office at Novell, also taking part in the panel on Wednesday, said that Microsoft would never put its Windows desktop position at risk by building Office for Linux. However, he said that the open-source community should stop focusing what Microsoft or hardware vendors are doing around Linux and let the market decide its fate.

"We need to get over our fixation with Microsoft. The question is not what Microsoft is doing. It is, what are we doing? The open-source movement is a bottom-up, not top-down, action," Asay said.

"We should be talking about how we can use the benefits of open source and Linux to leapfrog what's out there at the moment. After years of eating into Unix, Linux is finally starting to take market share from Unix on the server," Asay added.

Andrew Donoghue of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[JuggerNaut]

Office ported to the Mac???

Microsoft Office has always been on the Mac since like 1984!

[Thrudheim]

Yep, Word was on the Mac

before Windows was in existence!

[System Tyrant]

Some good advice.

I like what the rep from Novell said. It is time that companies stop focusing on Microsoft and start talking to customer about what they want. Novell knows well about trying to play Microsofts game.

I can't imagine Microsoft Office on Linux. I think the day we start seeing Microsoft products on Linux is the day we can all safely say Microsoft is in trouble. Of course I also think that many software programs would do good ported to the Windows platform. I still think that if some of these programs were available to Windows users it would make transition to Linux later easier.

[JuggerNaut]

That's what IBM has been doing for years...

...and they have been successful ever since. It was definitely a
good point to make I think.

[MarvinK]

Is this even news?

Its no surprise Microsoft isn't making desktop software for Linux (but always reserves the right for 10 years down the road). Even most big Linux supporters like IBM don't have core desktop applications for Linux yet. Look at Lotus Notes for example... slow to get Mac support and no Linux support. Linux isn't quite ready for serious desktop consideration for anyone but hardcore fanatics and those they drag along with them.

[System Tyrant]

I agree...

to some extent. I would love to jump ship and move to Linux, but Linux has many area's I still don't like.

First is the lack of software. Although it's not Linux's fault companies aren't porting their application it is their bane. And yes I know Linux has lots of free software, but they don't have what I need (which is specialty software).

Second is all the other crap, just like windows, that gets installed by default. I, maybe unlike others, don't have a need for IM, OpenOffice, etc. Now I know I can unistall it or uncheck it for installation, but that is time consuming on many PC's. (Ubuntu is good about not installing a bunch of crap by default. I like Ubuntu.)

Third is beta software. Linux beta's maybe better than Windows production software, but by leaving it in beta year after year it tell's me they have no real faith in their software.

Truthfully, for me it's more about software support. I have three (expensive) pieces of software that just don't work in Linux and until they do I and my office are stuck in Windows.

[steven.randolph]

Who needs it?

Office on Linux is redundant. There are truly great alternatives available on Linux (and BSD and Mac et cetera), some them completely free.

[Bill Dautrive]

Agree

There is nothing is Office that isn't available in Linux for free. There is even a free bonus, no marco-virus exploits. That is what you are paying for.

MS does not release their garbage on Linux because the majority of their sales are because of deceptive advertising, the kind that ignorant computer users fall for(90% of MS customers). Linux users know better then to use bloated, buggy and insecure software.