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Microsoft Teams becomes first Office app available for Linux. What's next?

Microsoft officials say the new Teams client for Linux is 'the first Office app that is coming to Linux.'
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor
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Credit: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching its promised Teams group-chat product for Linux in public preview form on December 10. Microsoft is making the Linux Teams preview available in .deb and .rpm formats for download starting today. Officials said all of Teams' core capabilities will be available to Linux users.

Microsoft's blog post announcing availability notes that "The Microsoft Teams client is the first Office app that is coming to Linux desktops." Microsoft has strongly hinted that OneDrive may be coming to Linux based on customer demand. I asked officials whether the core Office apps like Word, Excel and PowerPoint also are coming to Linux but didn't get a response. A number of customers have asked Microsoft to make Office 365 available on Linux.

Update: A Microsoft spokesperson said the company has "nothing further to share" about which of its Office apps also will be coming to Linux.

Microsoft already offers Teams for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and the Web. Microsoft group-chat rival Slack already has a Linux client.

Some Microsoft customers have been working with the Teams client for Linux in private preview "over the past few months," officials said.

Microsoft officials publicly acknowledged in early September that the company was working to build a Teams client for Linux. The original UserVoice request for a Linux client for Teams dates back to 2016. Teams for Linux is one of the top user requests on the Teams UserVoice site

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