Windows under Linux: CodeWeavers Has CrossOver Plans for 2009

CodeWeavers Inc. offers with its CrossOver product a commercial Wine variant for Linux and MAC OS X. The company is giving away thousands of units of its software due to a losing bet with the Great American Lame Duck Challenge they submitted in November 2008. Now, shortly after release of CrossOver 7.2, CodeWeavers provided a glimpse of their future plans for 2009, while reviewing the last year's accomplishments.

Whereas end-users hardly noticed the changes in 2008 (.NET support, DIB Engine and Gdiplus), CodeWeavers intends to make more of a market presence in 2009. The new version should support more games, Internet Explorer 7, modern QuickBooks versions, Quicken 2009 and Photoshop CS3. Even Outlook and the MS Office suites should function better.

CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White revealed in his Outlook for 2009 blog entry that work will gradually go into Direct X 10 support, now that the one for version 9 is relatively stable. Per White, they also plan to "dramatically improve the CrossOver GUI," among other enhancements. Not least of all, the Compatibility Center will give a better overview of supported and unsupported Windows applications.