MS porting Office to Linux? It may sound crazy, but developers say all the signs -- and rumors -- are there. By Mary Jo Foley, Sm@rt Reseller March 11, 1999 4:34 PM PT Could Microsoft Corp. be doing the unthinkable in porting Office to the Linux operating system? Rumors concerning the existence of an Office port to Linux have been circulating increasingly in recent weeks. '[Microsoft] techies are programmers in the dev [development] group. They are running Linux on boxes at Redmond and most have Linux on their home computers' -- An anonymous developer Since last fall, when open source advocate Eric Raymond published an internal Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) document outlining the company's view on Linux, Microsoft's interest in the open source operating system has been well documented and analyzed. The so-called "Halloween Memos" did not mention any intention on Microsoft's part to port Office, one of its cash cows, to Linux. However, when asked earlier this week whether anyone at Microsoft is currently involved in porting Office to Linux, Steve Sinofsky, vice president of Microsoft Office, said "I can't talk about that right now." He added that, "Linux is not there yet for end-user productivity applications. Lots of factors need to gel before we make a commitment [to delivering Office on Linux]." Developers: Work is underway But developers outside of Microsoft claim that the software maker has gone beyond the contemplation stage. Last week, Unix expert and technical author Simson Garfinkle mentioned on a radio talk show broadcast in the Boston area that he had corresponded with developers with inside knowledge of Microsoft's Office Linux porting efforts. Garfinkle declined to comment beyond what he said during the radio show. Another developer active on a number of industry news groups mentioned that he had been in touch with developers working for Microsoft who were working on moving Windows application programming interfaces (APIs) to Linux. "These [Microsoft] techies are programmers in the dev [development] group. They are running Linux on boxes at Redmond and most have Linux on their home computers. I don't think that MS is afraid of Linux but they ought to be," said the developer, who requested anonymity. Another developer and Linux advocate, who also requested anonymity, agreed that a decision by Microsoft to port Office to Linux could have the unintended effect of fueling Linux at NT's expense. A Microsoft Office port to Linux "will be good for corporate adoption of Linux," the developer said. "I can tell you that I would be able to move my main workstation over to Linux if I had Office for it, since that is what my employer standardized on." Hurdles ahead If Microsoft decides to field an Office Linux product, it will have to overcome some major hurdles first. Porting Windows applications to Linux is not easy, especially if the Windows apps are tied tightly to the operating system, notes Scott Petry, vice president of marketing with Cygnus Solutions, a cross-platform Windows-Linux porting tool vendor based in Sunnyvale, Calif. Cygnus is working with Corel Corp. to port WordPerfect to Linux via the WINE Windows-to-Linux translation layer. "Office would be one of the most challenging apps to move to Unix or Linux," Petry notes. "There's the Win32 APIs and Microsoft's implementation of the Win32 APIs, which is what Office relies on. A lot of hand-coding would need to be done to move Office just to the standard Win32 API set, let alone to Linux." Microsoft also will need to create a viable business model, via which the company and its partners can make money from Office running on an open-source platform. While Corel (Nasdaq:COSFF) and Star Divison GmbH have made public their intentions to offer desktop suites on Linux, Microsoft's main rival, Lotus Development Corp., has not announced any intentions to move SmartSuite to Linux. "Customers are asking us about Linux, but we can't make money on it today," says Howard Diamond, chief executive officer of Corporate Software & Technology, a Norwood, Mass., software reseller. "Our challenge is walking the line between shareware and the corporate market. The wrap-around things -- like applications services and support, is what you need to sell." If Microsoft does undertake an Office Linux port -- even if it is only a prototype or test -- it wouldn't be the first time that the company has made sure to cover all its bases with the Office platform. Microsoft historians will remember that Microsoft denied to the bitter end that the company was doing a version of Office written in Java, only to admit officially last year that the company was working on a Java-ized Office project, which it ended up scrapping. Additional reporting by John Spooner, PCWeek. [This is a pretty interesting strategy by Microsoft: kill off Linux by introducing the largest virus ever invented--Microsoft Office --Gary] From MAILER-DAEMON@cs.depaul.edu Thu Mar 11 22:00:59 1999