| You should not expect to see a version of Microsoft Office, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express any time soon for Linux. Microsoft has no interest in promoting a system cheaper than Windows. The only way this might happen is if the government decides to break up the company. |
| Fortunately many other companies make software and would be more than willing to fill the void. Star Office (recently acquired by Sun Microsystems) is available on some Linux distributions, and Corel is distributing Word Perfect for Linux on not only its own version but on other distributions as well. Users should pay close attention to the licensing requirements of these programs. Although the underlying Linux distributions are licensed to be installed on an unlimited number of computers, the Office software may only be licensed for a single computer. Or it may be a trial version requiring purchase of a license to be run after the trial period. Linux distributors are NOT allowed to charge for the product itself, only for distribution costs, support costs, and for the LICENSED software they may choose to include. Still, even with licensing requirements, they've got Microsoft prices beaten. Star Office 5.x can actually directly open Microsoft documents through 97, and Corel can convert Microsoft documents. Star Office cannot open Corel documents. So if your previous work is Microsoft, go with Star Office. If it's Corel, get the Linux version of Corel. |
| Also check out the free software that may be included with your distribution. You'll find text editors, word processors, spreadsheets, and graphic manipulation programs ("The GIMP" comes to mind). In fact, the GIMP (short for GNU Image Manipulation Program) compares favorably to Adobe Photoshop. Click here for a comparison. |
| And there's always Netscape! Any application that can run as HTML (this includes DHTML) can run on any platform. Remember the days when Microsoft began distributing Internet Explorer for free and it looked like they were going to drive Netscape out of business? Well, the folks at Netscape haven't forgotten. They are including Netscape Communicator in many Linux distributions. Fortunately Real Player, not Windows Media Player has become the dominant web program for audio-streaming. Smart webmasters don't want to alienate their non-Windows visitors. |