Yesterday, I read about this new product called Crossover Office. It essentially allows you to run quite a number of Microsoft products under Linux, including (hold your breath now) Microsoft Office 2000.

Hmmm, the holy grail – MS Office under Linux? I couldn’t resist this, bought the package ($54), whipped out my MS Office 2000 CD, and tried it out.

I am stunned. It works exactly as advertised. I now have Excel, Word and Powerpoint running under Linux – no VMware, no emulation, no Windows!

Actually, it did not work as advertised – it worked better! To my surprise, MediaPlayer worked (and showed me all the Windows-only media files I could lay my hands on), Tally worked (OK, no big deal, I know, since Tally has always worked well under wine, and there is a Linux port almost ready for release), printing worked, Outlook worked…..

And (now hold your breath, everyone) INTERNET EXPLORER WORKED!

Whew!!!!!

Crossover Office is actually a highly advanced version of Wine, along with some additional software that makes installing packages like MS Office, Lotus Notes, etc. much easier.

And the answer to your question is – it’s fast (not slow as under VMware).

Coming on the day that Sun’s StarOffice 6.0 Beta expired, this is indeed welcome news.

In other news, decided to hijack Mrinal and head for city to look for a nylon string guitar. Turns out that being Good Friday, Reynolds was closed. So headed went and bought way too many gifts for Anjali (whose birthday it is on Saturday) and headed back home.

One of the gifts is actually a boomerang, but more about that tomorrow.

Sunday is Easter. Memories of childhood. In Germany, my mother would hide nests of chocolate eggs all over the house the night before, and in the morning my brother Arun and I would turn the house upside down looking for them. Sometimes we wouldn’t find them all, and Mom couldn’t remember either, so it wasn’t uncommon to suddenly stumble on a nest of melted chocolate eggs months later

Have been contacted by the German Linux Magazin, who have asked me to write an article about Linux in India. After almost a decade in the writing business (in English), this will be the first time that I will be writing in my mother-tongue! Wish me luck!