[plug] horrors!

[Christian]

On Thu, Aug 17, 2000 at 08:40:58AM +0800, Leon Brooks wrote:
> ...but predictable:
> 
>     http://www.wininformant.com/display.asp?ID=2874

What rubbish!  Anyone notice how this comes shortly after both Sun
LGPLing StarOffice and the latest "GNOME Foundation" announcement?
People who were thinking about switching to StarOffice will now say
"Maybe we should wait for MS Office instead...?"  This is the same thing
Microsoft has been doing for years -- make an announcement that they are
going to release a product and, as a result, people reconsider their
deployment plans and start thinking about a Microsoft alternatve
instead.  Classic vapourware trick.  Also, notice the way they've done
it.  Instead of making an official press release saying "We're working
on a Linux MS Office" they have have another separate company release a
semi-rumour/semi-factual statement.  If they publicly announced it
themselves then that would be seen as an endorsement of Linux and making
it even more mainstream.  Hardly something they can do with a
"communist" operating system.  I predict if MS Office for Linux is ever
released it'll be a long way off and very slow/buggy ("Having problems
with Linux Office?  Try the Windows version, it's better...").