I've though about Crossover Office. The review I read said, in essence, "wow, it works, except for where it doesn't work." Office isn't a toy for me. It's something I need to do my job. I want to run a supported environment. Crossover Office smells like something Microsoft will go out of its way to kill (and, even if not that, it's certainly not something Microsoft will be testing against, and would never certify as a supported platform). I'd much rather do VMware, even though I loose things like cut-and-paste.

I've also thought about Star Office. Maybe the new version from Sun is better than one I played with last year. Again, this isn't a toy for me. PowerPoint is fundamental to my job. Can I develop a file with Star Office and deploy it on PowerPoint 2000? Vice versa? Do all the animations work? I'm sorely tempted to move to PowerPoint XP for its (finally!) revamped animation interface. Is there anything close for other platforms?

This is why the Mac route seems so attractive. Now if only they can solve the synchronization problem. This smells like something Apple should make as an O.S. service that other applications can plug into.

*sigh*