IBM is keen to migrate Microsoft Office suite to Linux,
although Microsoft has said it is not involved and suggests that
IBM might do it by emulation.
Many Linux users would prefer to run both Microsoft's Office
suite and IBM's Lotus Notes. This is possible, using emulation.
Companies such as US-based Codeweavers offer such products. But
this will not give users applications compiled for Linux.
Stefan Pettersson, technical manager for IBM's Lotus division in
Sweden, said that there will be a Java client of Lotus Notes some
time during the second half of 2004. This means that the first
"native" Notes client to run under Linux will soon be
available.
"The Office package is very good. If there's anything from
Microsoft that shines, that's it. Frankly, we choose to port all
our solutions to Office," said Pettersson.
Microsoft is also one of IBM's largest and most important
partners.
"It will be possible to run the Office package on the Linux
platform, said Pettersson. "Exactly how it's done, I can't reveal
right now. But we're working together with Microsoft, who have
provided us with part of their code. We've worked together like
that previously."
Pettersson is referring to IBM's porting of Microsoft's Outlook
e-mail client to the Domino server system, which was made possible
using code from Microsoft. Domino is a major player in e-mail.
Jonas Persson, Microsoft sales director for development tools,
denies that Microsoft is collaborating with IBM about the Office
suite.
"I am sure IBM is looking at different solutions. That's good,
we encourage evaluations," said Persson.
IBM might consider Sun Microsystems' StarOffice as an
alternative, since StarOffice already runs under Linux. However,
this is not on the horizon now.
"It suits us fine the Microsoft and Sun fight about office
application suites. We stay away from that. The reason we don't
collaborate with Sun is that they're too small," said
Pettersson.
Sverker Brundin writes for Computer Sweden