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IBM To Publish Java Office Suite
prostoalex writes "The Big Blue will bundle J2EE-based word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics applications in its WebSphere portal. What's more interesting is that the package is server-side, with functionality of the application being delivered to the user over the network. Both CRN (linked above) and The Register considered that a major move against MSFT."
Corel tried to deliver a Java based WordPerfect Office, but it lived on the client. I understand that the performance was so miserable that the attempt was scrapped after a couple of beta's.
More than "going to" they did it. Word Perfect 8.0 for Java was available, but it didn't do all that well.
Corel probably jumped the gun a little. The thing ran horribly at the time, because bytecode execution was so slow... and the vm's weren't tremendously mature on most platforms, so it wasn't altogether stable. I have a friend who is still using is, and with modern JIT compilers and higher speed computers it really runs like a dream.
Want my opinion? Java version of Word Perfect runs better on Linux than that Wine-enhanced native Linux version they released ever did.
>Do you have ANY idea how useful something like this could be to large environments? Where I work, we have 35,000 computers on the supported list. Two or three different platforms worth, PCs, Macs, and some occasional Linux machines. It would be kick ass if we could deploy one version of one productivity suite across the whole network, especially if we could do it with site based central servers rather than having to work on each and every PC on the fucking network.
In that case you should sit back, and take some time to study the centralized management features of MS Office. There are books about that, e.g. the "Office xxx resource kit" book for the version you run.
You will find that you can deploy office around your network (at least on the PC) from a central server without having to work on each and every PC on the fucking network.
The same thing probably exists for the Mac. If not, convince management that they should ditch it.
The editor is called Midas...looks pretty cool.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
It was called project Hat-trick (4 apps). It never saw the light of day.
On a separate note, Larry Ellison likes to make lots of predictions - has he ever been right?
GNU Enterprise.
(one of the 3 listed overviews:)
A set of tools, such as a data-aware user forms interface, a reporting system and an application server, which provide a development framework for enterprise information technology professionals to write or customise data-aware applications and deploy them effectively across large or small organisations. The GNUe platform boasts an open architecture and easy maintenance. It gives users a modular system and freedom from being stuck with a single-source vendor. GNUe supports multi-language interfaces and non-ASCII character sets.
Looks like this could be the tool that eventually lets you build quick and easy applications on Linux, as Access does on Windows.
>> IBM Software and its Lotus Software Group have built J2EE-based spreadsheet, document and presentation graphics "applications" that will be bundled for free with the company's WebSphere portal
At first I thought "What has a desktop Office suite to do with Java2EE, which is a server side technology?"
In fact the slashdot story text is misleading. In the IBM announcement is used a little bit different term - "spreadsheet and word processing 'applications'", where applications is quoted. It comes from Lotus and Java2EE is involved, so it looks like a collection of collaboration tools. Most probably the documents live on the server and the office "applications" are Java thin clients that can show and edit them.
Really nice application for Java2EE, though. What is not nice is that they have bundled the suite with the WebSphere portal, which is a beast of extreme size, both financially and technically. It may be a nice solution for "IBM only" shops, but to little use to other people.
We can only hope that the software is not tightly coupled with WebSphere, but is generally Java2EE compatible, so it can be used with any J2EE server.