Darren New wrote:
> And why isn't Linux an alternative?  Why isn't Mac OS X an alternative?

Linux is cheap but doesn't run Windows software or ports of major 
popular commercial software like Photoshop, AutoCAD or World of Warcraft 
without Wine and crashes.

Mac does run ports of most of them but is too expensive.

I'm still confident Linux will make more inroads in the desktop to the 
point of Adobe feeling an urge to port its major apps.

> So why aren't they alternatives? MS isn't buying every word processor 
> company.

The issue is that any word processor coming by should handle doc format 
perfectly -- no matter how good it is at an open format like ODF -- 
because that's what people send you and expect from you.  Not an easy 
task reverse enginneering an obscure, undocumented format like that.

I've never had any trouble opening any doc, xls or ppt from email 
attachments friends mail me, but those are hardly office production 
examples, so I can't be 100% sure.

OTOH, I've successfully opened older doc formats with OpenOffice while 
Word was complaining the format was too old. :)

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