MS Office for Linux won't convert the masses

COMMENTARY--Linux proponents look at the platform's growing list of applications and say, "It's half full," while the detractors give the corresponding "empty" retort. Would it make a difference if you could easily run your essential Microsoft Office applications under Linux?

That's the question posed by my colleague David Coursey in a recent column on CodeWeavers's CrossOver Office, which lets Linux users run MS Office 97, Office 2000, and Outook, as well as Lotus Notes.

"While I don't believe CrossOver Office is the killer app that will bring Linux to millions of desktops--I don't believe anything will do that--it is, nevertheless, an important development. For many users, it means they can fully express their techie spirit and freely choose their operating system, without sacrificing access to industry-standard productivity apps," Coursey wrote.

FOR SOME OF YOU, CodeWeavers's compatibility could be the key to Linux's mass acceptance. When combined with a strong financial incentive, the product could even prove attractive to a die-hard, Windows-lovin' business.

Michael Shaffer has tried several other Linux productivity solutions, but "so far, none of those apps provide enough compatibility to read the MS-formatted documents I receive at work. Yea, yea, they read in just fine, but paragraphs are formatted funny, tables don't look right, and bullets are all messed up."

"CrossOver Office allows a Linux user to live in the Microsoft world and not make any excuses," Shaffer wrote of his experience with it and Office 97. "Combine this with [Ximian's] Evolution and Connector, and one can get away with dodging corporate standards 99 percent of the time. All that's missing to make my life complete is a true Visio clone and teaching folks not to make IE-specific corporate Web sites."

"Corporations have thousands of copies of Office 97 installed. If they want to have a stable platform to run them on, Linux is perfect. Instead of being held hostage by Microsoft, forced to pay higher prices for Windows XP, and forced to concede to unreasonable conditions, they could move to Linux," Gary Hinton observed. "This would allow companies to avoid the cost of retraining all their staff on Office XP...[and] the cost of the software upgrades could be eliminated permanently. Why should my MS Office software be made obsolete just to enrich MS with no return for me?"

IN SPITE OF THESE arguments, many of you remained unconvinced. Even the fundamentals of the Linux pitch were beginning to sound strained.

"What Linux is missing is some reason to exist. 'Just as good' and 'Me too!' do not work very well for follow-on products, particularly if there is no significant price differentiation," Bill Weisgerber argued. "The Linux folks harp a lot on reliability, but that is not really an issue anymore. Windows XP is very stable compared with Linux--they need to get a better sales pitch!"

"The real competitive advantage that MS Office has over other business application software is its integration with Visual Basic for Applications," David Koci wrote, pointing out that not every Linux user will already own a copy of Office. "It was not mentioned whether VBA was operable using WINE [a Windows emulator], though my intuition would suggest that it's not. If VBA is indeed not operable with WINE, I see no advantage to paying hundreds of dollars for MS Office when there are perfectly capable business software packages available at little or no cost."

"Use Microsoft apps as seamlessly as native ones? I remember another perfectly capable and promising OS that went down in flames doing exactly that: OS/2," Julian Opificius warned. "The community will be served better by those praiseworthy folk out there focusing on the more important task: writing data-compatible apps, not code glue. The last thing we need to do is reduce the need for people to write native Linux apps 'because Linux runs Microsoft apps as well as native apps.' That, while not suicide à la OS/2, would be counterproductive."

WHILE THIS LAST POINT is a good one, current Linux users may overestimate the bravery of the installed base of Windows users. For most people, there's a great difference in the comfort level between running a file-compatible native application and using the actual program, even in emulation.

By supporting our hard-won experience, current workflows, and archived documents, programs such as CrossOver Office may give someone looking at Linux the added confidence needed to try something  new (rather than everything new).

Years ago, when making the transition from CPM to DOS, my father bought a Seequa Chameleon, which incorporated two different processors in order to run both OSes. In a short time, he discovered he didn't need his old CPM programs and programming tools.

I've had a similar experience with Mac OS X. I much prefer using native applications rather than running older programs in the built-in Classic emulation environment.

Yet, I note that this isn't really a fair comparison. Microsoft in this case makes it very easy for Mac owners--it sells a native version of Office.

David Morgenstern, past editor of eMediaweekly and MacWEEK, is a freelance editor and branding consultant based in San Francisco.

Do you think the ability to run MS applications on Linux machines will convince more people to use Linux? Why or why not? TalkBack to me below.