Must use MS-word. Help!.

[HORNE at CMOD2.PFC.MIT.EDU]

	Linux Folk -- 

	I am in a dreadful position.  I just took a new job at a company which
uses Microsoft Word as the standard text tool.   I would love to put Linux on
my machine there but it is imperative that I can manipulate documents in
whatever format MSword uses.  AFAIK, neither Wine nor Dosemu will handle
MSword.   I know that there is a windows-style editor (is it called
wordperfect?) which is available from Caldera.
I have never ever used any word processor written for dos/windows,
so I have absolutely no clue whether they can use each other's formats.

The Major Question -- Can the word processor included with Caldera read 
and write inMS-word format? (I don't mean emacs, tex/latex or 
any of the really useful tools, but the dos/windows thing.)

The minor question:
They also use Lotus cc:mail for internal e-mail.  Since I've been able
to mail to them from my home linux box via PPP I expect no problems
with email.
Am I being optimistic?

				Thanks
                                      Steve
                                           horne at pfc.mit.edu