Google have taken a fairly major step now towards supporting alternative platforms, by releasing their Picasa photo management software for Linux.

Google have only one other product that runs on Linux at the moment (correct me if I’m wrong here), which is the Google Toolbar for Firefox.

They haven’t completely rewritten Picasa for Linux, but have tweaked it to make it work with Wine. Wine is a piece of software that allows you to run simple and older Windows applications quite well under Linux (it works with Paint Shop Pro 4, for example).
Does this mean that Google are becoming more and more distant from Microsoft by supporting platforms other than Windows? Recently, we have seen quite a rift appear between Google and Microsoft; over the IE/MSN Search issue and also I doubt Microsoft are happy about the Google/Dell bundling now going on.

Or maybe Google are just being nice and making the Linux desktop a nicer platform to be on? According to Google, if this release goes well, they are planning to move some of their other applications to Linux as well. Personally, I’d like to see Google Desktop on Linux.

If you’re interested, download Picasa for Linux and check out the message boards. And if you’re interested in Linux…