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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."
Good job, IBM! It's always nice to see an industry leader promoting competition in the software arena. It forces all candidates to develop a better product. Perhaps this will spark some ideas with M$? (Not that they'll be any good, but still... ;-) )
Free, 100% Free, when you buy our $580,000 WebSphere Portal software/server combo!
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http://fink.sourceforge.net/
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.
For all practical purposes when I'm at work and the network is down..so am I. That's where the work is stored, that's where we access important information, that's how we communicate.
Even with desktop apps, when the network goes down - we're doing nothing.
I think that people are going to notice that there are other office suites out there... Especially if it comes bundled with the server. I know plenty of people who are tired of the way you have to pay $230+ for MS Office per machine. This definitely is a threat to MS.
Also, I wonder if they will adopt an existing file format, or if they are just going to go on thier own. I would think that people would like it much better, and would be less hesitant to switch to it, if they didn't have to hassle with thier file formats...
I dont think this is quite the same thing. IBM have invested heavily in their Websphere app server technology and this just looks like an attempt to squeeze Weblogic market share. Its more evidence that IBM see Webspere as a platform in and of itself.
It has the convenient side effect of putting the Lotus code base to work instead of sitting around doing nothing and if its well received new markets open on the desktop for IBM.
Personally I dislike Websphere but I think this is very clever idea which will go down well in the corporate sphere.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
If anything, it bodes well for Microsoft, because it gives them another solution to point to as a competitor, dispelling claims about MSOffice being a monopoly.
File formats? Compatible with Office? I doubt it. That means this thing is boat anchor. Either that, or it will join those thousands of boxes of the old Lotus Suite gathering dust in cabinets that companies got for buying Notes.
If there was an award for software distributed that never got used, nobody would ever beat IBM.
If this is tightly integrated with WebSphere, I can see how it would be a benefit to those who have already deployed or decided to deploy WebSphere. But without said tight integration, there's really not much benefit over using OpenOffice or some other freely available office suite. Having the apps served via the network may make it easier to deploy updates, but I still don't believe the suite is going to induce more people to buy Websphere unless it's tightly integrated and truly exceptional relative to other free alternatives.
Because when the network is down you are down, regardless.
Many business, like manufacturing, are so connected to computers that if the computer network goes down then business grinds to a halt.
I've worked in this type of place. It isn't as tough as you think, considering they only worked 2 shifts, leaving 8 hours for maintenance, etc. It isn't 24x7 but more like 16x5.
The biggest issues were desktop apps having problems. Amazing how much that stuff freezes and crashes when people *insist* on having Outlook, IE, Word, Excel, an SNA client (TN 3270) and possibly a CAD viewer (java applet) and maybe an MS Access database or two running all at once.
Believe it or not, Sun has the right idea. Build the network so that it is so reliable it makes the phone and power companies look like slackers. Then move 90+% of the apps back upstream to a professionally-managed & maintained server.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Not really.
It's possible to prevent java code from being decompiled. This can be done using Obfuscation of the code - basically converts the code so that it is more difficult to decompile (but not impossible).
The names of the variables and functions could be changed by such a tool to make it difficult to understand a program - as if it's already not difficult to understand without any comments.
"First it was dumb terminals then network computers and now this. Its dead give it up."
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.
If this supports server-side file storage, it's even better, since then we don't have to worry about user data any longer. We'll gladly build fault-tolerant servers if we only have to do it for about a hundred machines, and suddenly we can also roll out upgrades to the products with only a few days' work, not months like we currently have to.
The days of dumb terminals rocked. If one broke, we brought another one out, and swapped. If the server broke, we dropped everything and fixed it. Regardless, the user wasn't without a connection or machine for days at a time like which happens in the Windows world. If Microsoft hadn't managed to con everyone into believing that their dumbass standalone workstation idea was the best, we'd probably be using X-Terms now, and have even better centralization of critical data, rather than every user having to know how to copy their data to the network attached storage (and most of them are not interested in learning).
Just because a computing model is old doesn't mean that it's outdated.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Think of servers as a fixed cost and clients as a variable cost. With thin client models you only have to support a browser on the client machines. It is the end to a management headache: all those apps configured on all those clients.
Think about all those companies that are paying big bucks for all of those client OS's and Apps. Now they can get, for less than $200, loaded PC's (1.1 GHz PC w/Linux installed, no monitor).
Walmarts $199.98 PC.
Open source development is my way of competing with the low-cost programmers in India...
It could be argued there are plenty of office suites already, especially word processors and spreadsheets. However, what this huge steaming pile of free and open source officeware lacks is a real alternative to MS Access. There simply is nothing, except for some half-assed iimitators that only run on Windows themselves.
What I'd like to see is something programmed in Java, using an embedded Java RDBMS engine such as McKoi, but also able to be used as a front end to any SQL database -- just like Access. The problem with Acces is, of course, that it only runs on Windows. Wouldn't it be groovy to have a cross-platform, true alternative?
You have a single point for the software. Maintaining software on several hundred machines is a pain. Even when dealing with homogeneous systems it is a pain. Here, they want to upgrade to the next version - just redo one point.
This seems targeted for the corporate environment.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
IBM solved the Java GUI support problem. Take a look at Eclipse, based on IBM's SWT (Swing replacement).
- Tal Cohen
Good
1. Finally it would be easier to work on WSAD and a word document opened together. Anyone who has worked with these mammoth applications opened together would know what i am talking about. By making individual PCs dummy terminals, this could free up PReciOus processor power
2. Easier to maintain / Upgrade. The guys at the IT should definitely NOT be happy about this one. They will probably get laid off now that it is easier to upgrade due to the centralization.
Bads
1. The only good thing about a monopoly is the standard that it establishes. The article talks says the J2EE suite has
"80 percent of the Office functionality most people use".
There would now be a possibility for a doc file developed in MS Office to look different on these IBM systems. Imagine your resume getting rejected because of that !
2. Centralization could suck with Network breakdown. Switching PCs will not work !
Siggy Say, Siggy Do
As Ethernet bandwidth increases, the argument for putting the power back in the server farm gets stronger. The server farm is in a controlled environment, it's easier to manage. If you assume in a few years many corporates will have gigabit Ethernet to the desk, and simple, cheap thin clients running XPE or Embedded Linux, the IBM approach makes sense. It is also going to be cheaper for developing countries to do this from the start than to put big, expensive, rapidly obsoleting boxes on every desktop.
To a certain extent too, it leverages the Linux strength in the server versus its perceived weakness in the desktop.
Corporate IT should be about delivering the necessary, usable functionality to end users. Geeks often lose sight of that. Microsoft might lose sight of it. But it's IBM core business.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
True, IBM has experience killing off retail software, like SmartSuite.
But they also have experience dealing well with server software, like Websphere.
This is not competition for today's bloated Microsoft Office running on your desktop. This is competition for tomorrow's subscription Microsoft Office running on your company's big iron server.
Bloat is a not that much of an issue there (and at the Websphere price scale), and I don't expect it to be that bloated, memory-wise. It's likely to have less graphic candy, wizards, and certainly less "covert OS upgrade components" than MS Office.
GUI support is almost certainly a non-issue too. This is Websphere we're talking about: thin-clients, J2EE, Servlets, EJB and Web Services... that kind of stuff. If IBM chooses Applets for their GUI they should be beaten to a pulp literally, and probably will metaphorically. But that is doubtful, unless SWT is much better than it looks right now.
They'll likely use a big, complex Web interface and just require all users to use IE or Mozilla 18.whatever (probably the later for flexibility's sake), which is certainly less than a requirement to install some other custom client OR an Office suite.
I can already hear the complaints: "What? They force me to install a particular browser instead of a 1GB Office Suite? Oh no!". I'm just speculating, but that sounds to me like the sensible solution.
There's a broad market of options for Web-based interfaces that work quite well if you don't have to deal with compatibility issues, your application logic is not the issue, and you have the resources to debug them properly as an application (as opposed to as 'just a website').
This passes the GUI requirements to the browser support of whatever you're using for GUI: Javascript and DHTML works fine. Or maybe they could go for one of those new fancy XML-based 'web-app GUI' projects that one keeps hearing about in Slashdot. Or they can go the plug-in way.
Whatever they find works best for their Websphere market, which is what matters to them here.
Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Well, first off there is no IBM Linux. IBM doesn't have its own Linux distribution.
As to IBM's few software successes, they include:
I'd guess you're just a bitter OS/2 fan. Get over it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak