Yeah I had all these thoughts myself - if you're running WINE why would you care about MS Office to begin with? - you're going to be on a Linux system so odds are you're going to be using something like OpenOffice. - but - maybe you're not. A lot of people that have been using MS Word and/or Excel for years and years and have aced the interface are not going to want to switch to something else - especially if they've paid for it. There are other problems too - if you have a password protected word .doc you're not going to be opening it with OpenOffice for example. I guess what really got to me was the anti-competitive nature of what MS is doing (again) - heck even their new anti-spyware program considers FireFox spyware!

>Hi Victor,
>
>I saw this a couple days ago. My first reaction was that MS is taking a risk by doing this. Both public perception and possible a legal risk (anti-competitive, etc). After all, if I bought a copy of MS office, who are they to say where I can and cannot run it (and get the updates that any other paying user is entitled to).
>
>But after a couple days to reflect on this, I started thinking...
>
>If I'm running on WINE, and therefore Linux, why would I care about MS Office in the first place? I've got the free version of Open Office which is as good as MS Office in almost every meaningful way for the average user. Heck, I've even got Open Office for free on my XP box. When I share my .DOC or .XLS documents, no one knows whether I've done them in MS Office or Open Office.
>
>So it left me puzzled as to the news we're not hearing yet. It would seem to me that this initiative has implications way beyond MS Office.
>
>Guy
>
>
>>Micro$oft strikes again...
>>http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/0,2000061733,39182686,00.htm
>>
>>and oh yeah this is a good one too...
>>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1768170,00.asp