Hell freezes over: Microsoft Teams is coming to Linux

[137beth]

Microsoft has announced that Teams is now available as a beta on Linux, and is available in both .deb and .rpm formats. While this is not the first piece of software that Microsoft has supported on Linux, their previous LInux support (AFAIK) has all been either
1)Software aimed at servers or embedded computers, where Linux is already dominant
2)Software that was already on Linux before being aquired by Microsoft (e.g.Minecraft Java edition)
or
3)Software aimed primarily at programmers (like Visual Studio Code).

Teams, on the other hand, is a component of Microsoft Office, intended to be used on desktops by "ordinary" users. The reason for the change is, apparently, that isn't what some big corporate customers wanted. In particular, Volvo has bunch of office computers running Linux on which they would like to run Microsoft Teams.

Given the way that Microsoft is increasingly tying the components of Office together, I think this news makes it much more likely that we will see Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on Linux in the nearish future.

[deuterio12]

We got Sonic on Nintendo consoles.

We got Nintendo games on mobile phones.

We got Microsoft buying Rare from Nintendo then allowing Banjo-Kazooie in Super Smash Bros.

So it's not that surprising really. As you point out a lot of people using Linux, including big companies, but they're still interested in using certain Microsoft products, so at this point Microsoft would be kinda of a fool to not take the money they're offering. even if they're sticking with Linux.

[factotum]

I'm not sure Microsoft even cares about selling Windows these days--they seem to be aiming to make their money on the software running on the OS rather than the OS itself.

[snowblizz]

I'm not sure Microsoft even cares about selling Windows these days--they seem to be aiming to make their money on the software running on the OS rather than the OS itself.

Correct. Microsoft is moving form a "selling Windows and some Office software" company to a "provide software solutions" company. The market moved away from their stranglehold on the software business and they are adapting.