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gobeProductive 3.0 - Office XP killer?
Deffexor writes "It appears that gobe (that famous software company that made the invaluable "office suite" for BeOS) has unveiled their v3.0 release of gobeProductive for Windows and Linux. ArsTechnica has an excellent review of why this is such an important "office suite". While gobeProductive isn't as full-featured as OfficeXP, it certainly does garner a whole lot of Bang-for-the-Buck (especially with the FamilyLicense). The author does a great job of summarizing the superiority of gobeProductive in his conclusion when he says,"This review, which is fifteen pages of graphics and text (in the word processor), along with 5 separate sheets chock full of information, only uses 7MB of RAM while running. Microsoft Word XP (WINWORD.EXE), sitting idle with nothing open, uses 11MB of RAM."" Of course, RAM usage doesn't matter as much these days, with the standard RAM installed being above 128 megs, but still good to know. Update by RM, 8:58 US EST: Only the Windows version of gobeProductive v3.0 seems to be available at this time.
*The* most important thing with new Office suite, is compatibility. Near 100% compatibility.
;o)
Oh, 1st post too
XP killer, eh? Just because it's a superior product? Well, if anything'll work against microsoft, that'd be it.
Speak for yourself buddy. Anybody running multiple applications knows how quick you can chew up 300MB. And I'm not talking about doing graphics work. I work in the financial industry and my basic daily setup eats up 270Mb to start. Open a pdf in your web browswer and tack on another 20+ until you manually kill the acrobat task.
Its a really bad attitude to have that ram use doesnt matter. Its just an invitation to more sloppy programing and feature bloat.
It might be a great product but when the average user still thinks Micros~1 makes the best/only product it will never catch on.
It's the same thing with StarOffice for Windows.(which even was free) A great product, a lot more userfriendly when compared to MS Office. But somehow I could convince anyone to even try it.
Standard reply: 'Office is all I need.'
Man, MicroSoft does knows how to do their marketing...
They mention the Linux version here:
http://gobe.com/press/pr8_29_2001.html
Only $75, and they actually give you the rights an ordinary person would expect when buying something. Look:
"You are allowed to install gobeProductive on each Windows and Linux computer in your own residence. You are also allowed to install gobeProductive on your computer where you work. A certificate is included in the gobeProductive package explaining to your employer that this is allowed."
I'm one of those XHTML-or-die people, but I may have to give this a look.
Ok, so it's slightly off-topic, but it follows discussion on recent posts. A lot of consumers beleive you get what you pay for. Most aren't going to spend $400 for a full copy of XP, but they see that in the store and when they buy a computer with OfficeXP SBE (a cheaper version) they think they really have something. "Why would anyone charge $400 for a product if it wasn't worth it?" Linux needs an office app that includes all the basics, but added database and other high level apps most people don't use. Then put it next to the "stripped down" version that has just the apps people want. RedHat knows this. Go to Best Buy, and you see the $200 pro version next to the $60 standard. I'll bet they sell more of the $60 version, but the $200 pro version boosts the percieved value of the $60 standard one.
Anyone know if this will work under the Linux emulation layer in the *BSD family? I'd love to give it a try, but my only x86 box is running OpenBSD and I doubt they'll release a LinuxPPC build so I can try it with the penguin.
--saint
Some of which seems a bit odd.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Come on people..
1) drive space makes no difference in the corp world today
2) cpu power is not a concern
3) memory usage is not a concern
4) "runs on linux" is not a concern
What is:
1) compatible r/w file formats with what everyone else is using
2) cheaper
3) comes pre-installed with a new pc
"gee look, it only uses 7 MB where word uses 11!!! holly cow.. it's revolutionary!" DOH!
-- "The best way to predict the future is to invent it."
While gobeProductive isn't as full-featured as OfficeXP
Then it's not an Office killer. Don't get your hopes up.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
gobeProductive 3.0 - Office XP killer?
No, but it is a very likely StarOffice 6 killer...
Utterly essential that this works for communicating with the outside world.
Cheers,
Ian
From the FAQ:
Q: The initial release this fall is Windows only. How do I get the Linux version?
A: There will be a certificate in the package that entitles you to a free Linux installation CD once the Linux version is available. Fill out the certificate and send it to us. Once the Linux version of gobeProductive is released we will send a CD to you.
Q: Will both Windows and Linux installation CDs come with the package after the Linux version is completed?
A: Yes.
Why is everyone treating Office XP like it is the best thing that ever happened to office apps? It almost drove me insane. Little icons popping up all over the text - without clicking on anything, those docked dialogs appearing on both sides of the document when least needed, dynamic toolbars that never seem to stay docked... I was glad it was just a 30day trial and I re-installed Office 2000 a few days later.
:)
I really have to try some of the alternative office apps. Tried StarOffice beta on Linux. Liked it a lot.
There does not appear to be a demo version available on their website. At one level I understand that there are issues with demos that are difficult to get around. (I used WinZip and Paint Shop Pro for YEARS without registering them) But if they really want to make a dent in the Microsoft Office Monopoly they are going to have to earn the trust of the techs. There is simply no way that I will recommend to my boss that we switch away from the most popular piece of software ever without being able to play with it for at least a month. How am I going to justify buying another TOTALLY EXTRANEOUS office suite, just to test it out? Something for the Gobe guys, or any other MS competitor to ponder...
It doesn't matter if it's 10x better then XP office and only uses 2 Meg of disk space and 300 k RAM, if I can't read the data everyone else is sending me I have no other choice but XP office. To use any non/semi compliant office suite would require my entire company taking the plunge and corporations want solutions that are proven, they are not looking to beta test. I have enough trouble using a non-MS email client because outlook loves to package everything into a winmail.dat file that my or any other standards compliant email application is incapable of handling. Abi word does OK at reading some word files but does not even have an option to save a file as a .doc, therefore rendering any compatibility entirely useless.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
Of course, RAM usage doesn't matter as much these days, with the standard RAM installed being above 128 megs, but still good to know.
Less RAM used means less memory accesses, which means more free memory bandwidth, which means everything runs faster. RAM is still the bottleneck on 99% of systems, so the less you use the better. Oh. And Windows (I still run 98SE) itself takes up about 128mb of RAM with a few agents running. Stripped down to nothing running I can't get it below 75mb.
RAM still matters. Don't be bad programmers.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
I read the review. From the way the features were described, this doesn't sound like a product in the same league as Office XP; it's more of a Microsoft Works level product.
If it truly has 100% compatible document import/export, then people might feel comfortable using it as a replacement for Office on some desktops (much as StarOffice is being used now in many companies).
I especially like the licensing. I hope that they sell many copies to families with new computers.
On Linux, I don't think they have much chance of making money. The word processor sounds like it is pretty similar to AbiWord in available features. The spreadsheet sounds like it is not quite up to Gnumeric's level yet. Graphics are not up to the GIMP yet (although they might be a bit more newbie-friendly; I couldn't really tell from the review). In short, there is very little functionality here that is not available already in the free software. Most of the people interested in using Linux probably won't be interested in paying for software that offers little beyond what is already free on Linux.
The integration features are sort of interesting. When you do a Save As on a document with a spreadsheet, several pictures, and some text, I wonder what happens?) Microsoft Office has had features like this since forever, though: you can pick one document to be a shell and drop other documents into it, or else you can run the "binder" and make a metadocument with several other documents bound up inside. (I think most people just do the shell document thing; MS has mostly retired the binder. You can still install it if you like but it is no longer installed by default.) The clean "sheets" interface is nice, but I think you could get that in Office by using an Excel spreadsheet as the shell doc.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Unfortunately, nothing will ever 'kill' Office until MS gets in (real) legal trouble, and Office loses support or something like that, Office has a huge, damaging exploit in parallel with another product's release, or other such things.
That, and 100% compatability with current MS Office products. I hear you say, "What about WordPerfect?" This really isn't such a big concern, because most people do, and have used, MS Office for the last 5 or so years.
The main concern with compatability isn't necessarily, "Can I use this flawlessly with the other documents circulating the office?" but, "Can I use this to flawlessly read documents generated in all the various versions of Office?" or, "Will I still be able to retain my original formatting, and can it be saved with that same formatting as well, so people still using Office can read it properly?"
Unfortunately, I suspect that MS Office has some sort of 'failsafe' *cough* mechanism that causes any documents written with another program to be rendered differently each time, etc.
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