According to an article in PC World – [url=http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,114782,00.asp]IBM Eyes Office for Linux[/url], IBM are supposedly going to be porting Microsoft Office over to Linux.
Without Microsoft’s help.
Yeah right.
I really can’t see that happening – there’s no real value if we don’t own the code.
Microsoft have suggested doing it by emulation might work – that way IBM wouldn’t need the source code to Office necessarily.
Personally I think IBM should just license [url=http://www.openoffice.org/]Open Office[/url] and resell that – throw more development money behind the open source project.
Office might be a cashcow for Microsoft, but I really don’t think an Office suite is ever going to make anyone else much money – even if they did gain good marketshare from Microsoft. It’s just about a commodity now, and IBM doesn’t play well in that space.
Why not follow the path we’ve successfully taken with the OS, the browser and the development platform – pour money and expertise into an open source office project and the whole world benefits, especially our ability to sell the concept of a non-Microsoft desktop to our customers and the flow-on benefits that could have in the enterprise software arena.
Interesting times.
IBM has the muscle and the know how to make some really exciting stuff happen.
I just hope common sense and a continuing desire to be the good guys prevails.
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