What's Holding Linux Back?

Lack of High Level Professional Software

This problem looked solved with the huge commitment that Corel had placed in Linux development. Their Corel Office Suite may not have been fully native, using WINE instead of being rebuilt from the ground up, but it was hailed as a very good move for Linux. The addition of the Corel Draw Suite only furthered the excitement. However, with the 135 million dollar investment from Microsoft, the ouster of their CEO and the pressure to sell off Linux and cease development of Linux products, it seems that this situation may not have a happy ending after all. Sun may have bought Star Office, but 5.2 is considered by many to be a sluggish group of applications held together by an arcane group interface. Open Office / Star Office 6 seeks to change this, but I'm not sure anyone really considers that effort to be as high level of a suite as Corel Office has been.

VMware helps to numb the pain somewhat, but running Windows apps natively in a separate environment is not the same as having native apps of your own. While KDE Office may be a step in the right direction, again, it does not have the impact that a development suite from Adobe or Macromedia would have. It does not have the corporate backing that a Lotus Smart Suite or Corel Office would have.

As a result of the dot-com crash, investor confidence is shaken in a lot of key areas, including the Linux market. It is not too likely that we will see any hardcore development from huge vendors for the coming months, particularly when they need to focus their efforts on OS X and Windows XP releases to meet demand there. Frankly, I'm not sure what the answer will be here. For all its power, individual applications like Gimp don't carry the same weight as Photo Shop, and with the buyoff of Corel, I'm not sure we will see big name apps anytime soon.