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tiuPapa8y ago· 3 in thread

Are they available for Linux?

No they're not because of multitude of reasons but they now use a open XML format that does way better interchange with openOffice etc. and don't actively try to shut down those products.

__sr__8y ago

The keyword being now. It happened when they realised that they were going to be knocked off their pedestal if they didn’t open up - not when they were at the height of their power.

By the way, is the XML Office file format really open — to the extant where one can create a third party client which works as well as the official one without reverse engineering?

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severino8y ago

Well, I know Microsoft XML format has the word "Open" in its name. But is it open? Can other vendors achieve 100% compatibility with the official Office products' formats? I don't think so.

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my1238y ago· 1 in thread

Office was available for the Mac before Office for Windows even existed.

__sr__8y ago

And it was left to languish for a couple of decades before the move to cloud centric multi-platform workflow left them with no other choice.

I am not a power user of MS Office, but the ones I know tell me that the macOS version still lacks features compared to Windows.

And lastly, where is MS Access for macOS?

evilduck8y ago

Office for Mac is generally regarded as inferior to the Windows versions and the Mac version of Internet Explorer was last released like 14 years ago. I’m not even sure it runs on Intel Macs.

severino8y ago

I'm talking about all the Microsoft software available only for Windows, and all the closed services they won't let you use without the official client. I think it's the same story.

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