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I don’t know. I think they’re still the same at the core, they just do enough to try and stay relevant. Office for Linux would be easy, but that’s not going t

I don’t know. I think they’re still the same at the core, they just do enough to try and stay relevant. Office for Linux would be easy, but that’s not going to happen. My companies online outlook shows that MS is adding clones of all the tools (slack/trello). They’ve been successful and monitizing in this new era

oldjokes 8y ago
Yeah clearly they are throwing a lot of spaghetti at things, I don't know that that's necessarily bad. At least they are trying to do so openly and in a API-centric way instead of just building the garden walls higher like every other company. I haven't used Office in years and don't know anyone who has, so I'm not sure how big of a priority it is to add platforms to a product like that.
bunderbunder 8y ago
> Office for Linux would be easy, but that’s not going to happen. I have a hard time believing it would be easy. I use both Office for Windows and Mac, and the differences are great enough that I'm guessing that there's a huge amount of divergent code in the UIs. And both would be written against GUI toolkits that are not present on Linux, so a Linux port would be yet another major effort. That said, I think that you're right that it's not going to happen. My understanding is that a major consideration for anyone looking to port a commercial desktop product to Linux is that Linux desktop users are, in the broad, very hesitant to spend $100s on a commercial product when open source alternatives exist. My guess would be that a Linux port of Office just isn't a proposition that is likely to generate positive profits.
- BuckRogers 8y ago
  Office Online is the desktop Linux user's access to Office. Enough people use Macs that it makes sense to invest into the effort, else some other vendor will gobble up Office's marketshare. I use Office Online and LibreOffice all the time on Windows 10, some documents it's just better to have guaranteed formatting compatibility with the majority of documents which are put out through MS Office. I would personally just continue the same pattern if I were a desktop Linux user.
balls187 8y ago
Have you looked at Office365?
Scuds 8y ago
> Office for Linux would be easy, but that’s not going to happen. They're rewriting Office in React Native so Windows, OSX, and mobile ports will have a lot more in common. But "Desktop Linux" will always be a million support headaches for no market share; which begs the question "Dear Lord, why?"
- cm2187 8y ago
  And the only way to build market share is through cannibalization of windows licenses. Not in microsoft's interest. If you hae a proper office for windows, I bet many companies would consider seriously switching to Linux.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Office has been available for Mac for well over two decades. There are so many more reasons for companies preferring Windows on the desktop than just Office.
    - cm2187 8y ago
      I think there were so may more reasons. But what I see is all internal apps moving to be web based. 5 more years and Office is really going to be the last thing tying up corporates to Windows.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
        Call me when Linux has anything that works as well as AD.
        scarface74 8y ago
        You just need a server running AD. Third party and browser SSO with AD is a solved problem.
        yellowapple 8y ago
        It does; it's called AD. :) The actual problem is the lack of Group Policy support (or even a viable equivalent - preferably one that's cross-platform).
luckydata 8y ago
Office on Linux already exist, it's called Office 365. Porting Office desktop for an operating system that's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT for office users makes no sense.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  > an operating system that's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT for office users Arguably a large part of the reason that Linux isn't used in offices is because MS Office isn't available. Of course it's in Microsoft's interest to keep it that way.
  - BuckRogers 8y ago
    I love Linux Mint and Antergos as much as the next guy but Microsoft built an entire platform/ecosystem around tight integration between a full range of enterprise products. I can't say I blame them, decades of significant effort is required to do that and it's not easy or there would be someone else who has done it. Not only is the incentive not there as you mentioned, but it's definitely not malevolence to avoid trying to support random desktop Linux distros which will likely not cooperate with their integration efforts (and likely take joy in being able to reject or impede MS's efforts), to the degree they can with Windows 10. They have the right idea today, embrace server-side Linux with .Net Core, and soon, .Net 5. That's what Linux is primarily intended for, it's a server kernel and where the action is in regards to that ecosystem. There's a reason some of the code in X11 hasn't been touched in 20 years.
  - luckydata 8y ago
    C'mon, that's complete bullshit. Linux is very hostile to the everyday user, you can't expect a large majority of users to have to fiddle as much as it's necessary to get a barely passable desktop experience on Linux. You buy a Windows or Mac computer and you're going in 10 minutes. There's no combination of distro or hardware where that's true for Linux.
    - tracker1 8y ago
      I pretty much disagree here. Before she passed last year, I had my grandmother on linux for about 11 years. I had wine setup for the handful of old games (95 era) she liked, and made sure to update everything once or twice a year. Of course one time I waited too long. Archived her home dir, and installed the latest Ubuntu, restored her home dir, and she was up and running again. She didn't have to know anything about linux to use it. The same is true for a lot of people. More so in a corporate environment with dedicated staff to handle the harder problems. Hell, most people in offices could get away with a Chromebook and Office 365 today. Of course, general use laptops and proper linux support are not things that are very common. That part truly sucks. And, yeah, it's not pre-installed for the most part except for some boutique vendors and a couple Dell offerings. Aside: Have had a few looks at System 76 lately. May change out my mid-2014 rmbp next year. Unfortunately it's one of the last systems with NVidia, and the metal 2 support for the 750M doesn't work well at all. I'm also probably going to change my desktop to Linux in a few months. Hackintosh support is all but going away, and although I could change out my GTX 1080 with a next gen Navi for hackintosh, but I just don't want to support the mac platform anymore, and my 1080 has a lot of life left in it.
sabarn01 8y ago
It only took about 5 years to get one rendering engine for both Mac and windows, but sure it would be easy.
manigandham 8y ago
The efforts have been spent on cloud services. Office 365 online is rather good, OneDrive finally works, and other things like Teams and DevOps are being well integrated. For 95% of business users, these online editions have all the capabilities they need without the install headache and are much easier to maintain and update. Office Desktop just had a refresh too but there's basically 0% Linux business users to spend the millions in development costs for a variant.

oldjokes 8y ago

Yeah clearly they are throwing a lot of spaghetti at things, I don't know that that's necessarily bad. At least they are trying to do so openly and in a API-centric way instead of just building the garden walls higher like every other company. I haven't used Office in years and don't know anyone who has, so I'm not sure how big of a priority it is to add platforms to a product like that.

bunderbunder 8y ago

> Office for Linux would be easy, but that’s not going to happen. I have a hard time believing it would be easy. I use both Office for Windows and Mac, and the differences are great enough that I'm guessing that there's a huge amount of divergent code in the UIs. And both would be written against GUI toolkits that are not present on Linux, so a Linux port would be yet another major effort. That said, I think that you're right that it's not going to happen. My understanding is that a major consideration for anyone looking to port a commercial desktop product to Linux is that Linux desktop users are, in the broad, very hesitant to spend $100s on a commercial product when open source alternatives exist. My guess would be that a Linux port of Office just isn't a proposition that is likely to generate positive profits.

BuckRogers 8y ago
Office Online is the desktop Linux user's access to Office. Enough people use Macs that it makes sense to invest into the effort, else some other vendor will gobble up Office's marketshare. I use Office Online and LibreOffice all the time on Windows 10, some documents it's just better to have guaranteed formatting compatibility with the majority of documents which are put out through MS Office. I would personally just continue the same pattern if I were a desktop Linux user.

balls187 8y ago

Have you looked at Office365?

Scuds 8y ago

> Office for Linux would be easy, but that’s not going to happen. They're rewriting Office in React Native so Windows, OSX, and mobile ports will have a lot more in common. But "Desktop Linux" will always be a million support headaches for no market share; which begs the question "Dear Lord, why?"

cm2187 8y ago
And the only way to build market share is through cannibalization of windows licenses. Not in microsoft's interest. If you hae a proper office for windows, I bet many companies would consider seriously switching to Linux.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Office has been available for Mac for well over two decades. There are so many more reasons for companies preferring Windows on the desktop than just Office.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    I think there were so may more reasons. But what I see is all internal apps moving to be web based. 5 more years and Office is really going to be the last thing tying up corporates to Windows.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Call me when Linux has anything that works as well as AD.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        You just need a server running AD. Third party and browser SSO with AD is a solved problem.
      - yellowapple 8y ago
        It does; it's called AD. :) The actual problem is the lack of Group Policy support (or even a viable equivalent - preferably one that's cross-platform).

luckydata 8y ago

Office on Linux already exist, it's called Office 365. Porting Office desktop for an operating system that's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT for office users makes no sense.

nicoburns 8y ago
> an operating system that's COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT for office users Arguably a large part of the reason that Linux isn't used in offices is because MS Office isn't available. Of course it's in Microsoft's interest to keep it that way.
- BuckRogers 8y ago
  I love Linux Mint and Antergos as much as the next guy but Microsoft built an entire platform/ecosystem around tight integration between a full range of enterprise products. I can't say I blame them, decades of significant effort is required to do that and it's not easy or there would be someone else who has done it. Not only is the incentive not there as you mentioned, but it's definitely not malevolence to avoid trying to support random desktop Linux distros which will likely not cooperate with their integration efforts (and likely take joy in being able to reject or impede MS's efforts), to the degree they can with Windows 10. They have the right idea today, embrace server-side Linux with .Net Core, and soon, .Net 5. That's what Linux is primarily intended for, it's a server kernel and where the action is in regards to that ecosystem. There's a reason some of the code in X11 hasn't been touched in 20 years.
- luckydata 8y ago
  C'mon, that's complete bullshit. Linux is very hostile to the everyday user, you can't expect a large majority of users to have to fiddle as much as it's necessary to get a barely passable desktop experience on Linux. You buy a Windows or Mac computer and you're going in 10 minutes. There's no combination of distro or hardware where that's true for Linux.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    I pretty much disagree here. Before she passed last year, I had my grandmother on linux for about 11 years. I had wine setup for the handful of old games (95 era) she liked, and made sure to update everything once or twice a year. Of course one time I waited too long. Archived her home dir, and installed the latest Ubuntu, restored her home dir, and she was up and running again. She didn't have to know anything about linux to use it. The same is true for a lot of people. More so in a corporate environment with dedicated staff to handle the harder problems. Hell, most people in offices could get away with a Chromebook and Office 365 today. Of course, general use laptops and proper linux support are not things that are very common. That part truly sucks. And, yeah, it's not pre-installed for the most part except for some boutique vendors and a couple Dell offerings. Aside: Have had a few looks at System 76 lately. May change out my mid-2014 rmbp next year. Unfortunately it's one of the last systems with NVidia, and the metal 2 support for the 750M doesn't work well at all. I'm also probably going to change my desktop to Linux in a few months. Hackintosh support is all but going away, and although I could change out my GTX 1080 with a next gen Navi for hackintosh, but I just don't want to support the mac platform anymore, and my 1080 has a lot of life left in it.

sabarn01 8y ago

It only took about 5 years to get one rendering engine for both Mac and windows, but sure it would be easy.

manigandham 8y ago

The efforts have been spent on cloud services. Office 365 online is rather good, OneDrive finally works, and other things like Teams and DevOps are being well integrated. For 95% of business users, these online editions have all the capabilities they need without the install headache and are much easier to maintain and update. Office Desktop just had a refresh too but there's basically 0% Linux business users to spend the millions in development costs for a variant.