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Comment by executesorder66 | Hacker News Reader

It is definitely a step in the right direction.

But I'd argue that the most used microsoft product in the world (besides Windows) is MS Office. What holds a lot of people back from running Linux is that they don't like dealing with compatibility issues with LibreOffice and MS Office.

Microsoft knows if they open source or port MS Office to Linux, they will lose a massive market share and millions of people will stop using Windows. And I don't blame them, any reasonable business would not do something like that.

But unless they do that, I don't see how they can claim to be cooperating when they refuse to port their main product to Linux.

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>Microsoft knows if they open source or port MS Office to Linux, they will lose a massive market share and millions of people will stop using Windows.

That's a huge assumption. There's no real indication that people would stop using Windows if Office existed in Linux.

If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think?

Ultimately I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't bother porting to Linux is that the market-share is just not worth the cost of re-writing for another platform, and keeping it updated.

Additionally, as a compromise Office 365 runs on browser, which further decreases the incentive to port to Linux. Since you can get a similar experience using Office 365 on Linux, that said I won't be so disingenuous as to imply that the experience is as good as a native application.

In conclusion, Linux has a very small market share, so making a native application for it might not be cost effective. Additionally, Microsoft might see that market share as "served" regardless due to their online Office 365 web application.

> That's a huge assumption. There's no real indication that people would stop using Windows if Office existed in Linux.

Except for basically every thread I've seen about switching to Linux, where people say the only reason they won't switch is because they still want to use Office and Photoshop.

>If that were the case, then porting Office to OS X would've had a similar effect, don't you think?

No. Cost is a major reason people don't switch to OS X. But Linux is free.

> Ultimately I believe the reason Microsoft doesn't bother porting to Linux is that the market-share is just not worth the cost of re-writing for another platform, and keeping it updated.

That is a good point. But as I said, unless they port their main product to Linux, how can they claim to be cooperating when the ONE product that most people agree is a very good MS product is not available natively on Linux?

> Cost is a major reason people don't switch to OS X.

Cost is a lot more than the physical machine.

This is why Linux machines while technically less expensive (no OS license) are actually more expensive in terms of support. Until that nut can be cracked it's hard to get wide-scale adoption (e.g. 50% deskops vs. 5%).

Do you have a reliable ref for the cost comparison?

IBM does studies, though they are to be taken with a grain of salt. http://www.cio.com/article/3001871/macbook/switch-to-macs-fr... Thing is they're one of the few companies that are proponents of both Mac and Linux (plus their own UNIX variant) as well as Windows.

It really depends on the company and the nature of work people are doing. Some software is a mess on anything but Windows. Some software is actually better on Linux.

> Except for basically every thread I've seen about switching to Linux

Those are people who are aware of Linux, while much of the population isn't. Selection bias at play.

> unless they port their main product to Linux

Office accounts for about 5% of MS's revenue.

> how can they claim to be cooperating when the ONE product that most people agree is a very good MS product is not available natively on Linux?

That's not the only definition of "cooperating"...

Well, it sounds like they're working with Linux in some markets and going their own way on others.

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