Codeweavers delivers Office XP support

CodeWeavers on Thursday rolled out the latest version of CrossOver Office, which allows desktop users to run Microsoft's Office XP along with Adobe's Photoshop 7 under Linux.

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Version 2.0 of the product supports the suite of Office XP applications with the exception of Outlook XP and Access XP, although Outlook 2000 and Access 2000 are supported, a company spokesman said. The company plans to support the XP versions of Outlook and Access in the next release of the product.

Company officials hope the new support for Adobe's Photoshop will broaden the appeal of CrossOver Office into new market segments where Phototshop is an essential application including movie makers, animators, publishing houses, advertising agencies, and graphic design companies.

The product's support for double-byte languages should also help draw more interest from Pacific Rim countries.

"We think Linux is a huge opportunity for us in countries like China and Japan , and Korea . We think the new [double-byte] support significantly enhances our sales efforts into these Linux-friendly markets," said Jeremy White, the founder and CEO of Codeweavers.

CrossOver Office 2.0 works with all the major distributions of Linux including Red Hat's 9.0,Mandrake's 9.0, and SuSE's 8.1 Linux. It will carry a retail price of $54.95, although versions for workgroups, and enterprise licensing discounts are available, according to a company spokesman.