According to a new report, Microsoft is considering Office for Linux, for a release date of next year. Apparently, having Office on Linux is a “viable commercial opportunity.”
This rumor comes from Microsoft’s plans to develop Office for Android, which makes it a little easier to have Office on Linux. “Android, as you may already know, is a Linux-based operating system, meaning a lot of the porting work will have already been done — it shouldn’t take too much effort to take the next step and bring Office to Ubuntu, or whichever distro Microsoft favors,” the report states.
During FOSDEM, a open source conference held annually in Brussels, Microsoft is taking a ‘meaningful look’ at Office for Linux and sees that there might just be a ‘viable commercial opportunity’ in having Office on Linux.
As far as “open sourcing” Office, that may or may not happen as a result of having Office on Linux. Aside from acquiring Skype, Microsoft has never released a desktop application for Linux. Microsoft does, on the other hand, have a Linux department that maintains Hyper-V compatibility with Linux operating systems.
If true, this could present a big opportunity for the software giant, depending on how much of a demand there is for having Microsoft’s Office productivity suite on the Linux operating system.
