Aim: To get rid of windows

Are there DLLs in Linux similar to windows? Does linux support COM/ActiveX?
What made me ask this question is that Iam trying to get rid of windows and I was wondering if somebody were to send me a Word document or an Excel Document as an attachment over internet e-mail....is there a way by which I can download and read them?
Since Word and Excel are COM servers and since COM is a binary standard(thatz what MS claims), I thought I cud write a simple COM server(DLL) and use it to parse the WORD/Excel document and reformat it in such a way that it can be read by an equivalent application supported on Linux.
Any suggestions here? Or are there ready-made converters available on the net? Please let me know...

Prowzen

Star Office, Kword, Abiword, Kspread

These are all word/spreadsheet programs which can read and save microsoft file formats. You dont need to make a program because they already exist, and Linux doesn't need to convert a windows file into something else to be able to read it (unless it is an executable or file designed for windows to run a program - in which case you may be able to use wine, a windows api emulator).

BTW I dont think that Linux support Active X in programs, but may in web browsers. Not too sure.

thatz hepful. To think that I was planning to reinvent the wheel! I did some research on the net and I got to learn more about the capabilities of these converters and also about the windows emulators...thanks for the info