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IBM To Announce Web-Based Desktop Apps
mgoulding writes "IBM is expected to announce a software bundle targeted to business users that will challenge the Microsoft Office package. Unlike Office, the email, word-processing, spreadsheet, and database products will be accessible to Linux, Unix, and heldheld users through a web server. NewsFeed posts the story from CNET." It's certainly something that's been tried before - witness sites like MyWebOS (no longer existing).
What's the pricing for this setup? I know the article mentions a $2/user/month charge, but it also requires IBM Websphere (which is what IBM really wants to sell with this setup). Which version does it require? Websphere has quite a price range.
Also, the really big question is: What is its compatibility with MS Office?
Casual Games/Downloads
If I remember correctly, back when Microsoft started trying to think of something to tie to their new .NET naming scheme they had the idea that the version of Office beyond Office XP was going to be completely web based, where you would basically subscribe to it and log on via a webpage. Of course, seeing how the version beyond Office XP was Office 2003, they obviously changed their minds.
I wouldn't use web-based applications for the same reason I don't use webmail. It's like sitting at a dumb terminal... I feel very powerless.
I guess the submitter doesn't remember Lotus eSuite.
Intelligent Life on Earth
As the article said, it's been tried before. IBM had a toolkit out for doing just this a couple years ago. The toolkit/sdk was pretty nice too...for the life of me I can't remember the name....
However, it didn't fly then, why would it fly now?
First, we need a better HTTP-friendly GUI protocol. HTML+DOM+JavaScript is awkward for business applications and forms. Those were generally designed for "e-brochures", and not business forms. XML candidates include XUL, XWT, SCGUI (my pet protocol), and others.
Table-ized A.I.
Management is getting POed by all these windows viruses, and the IBM name carries a lot of weight in some shops...
When I worked there, I poked around and saw something (I forgot the code name) which was Word and Excel in a web browser done with DHTML and script and no activeX, similar to Outlook Web Access. They cancelled it a couple of years ago, but they can bring it back out.
This seems like they're just using a web browser the same way X programs use a remote display. Remember in the old days when everyone had a local machine that was relatively weak, and ran all their *real* applications (you know, besides, xclock) through the lan, on a computer hidden in a server closet somewhere? This sounds very similar, except they'll be using the web as an interface, instead of X-windows.
This might look like IBM is trying to get back some sales from Dell -- the machine sitting on a user's desk can be anything, but the server in the back room will be an IBM, worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Or will the web interface simply download a java application to the person's local machine?
-S
I remember reading some announcement about how Lotus (owned at the time by IBM) was going to put out a web-based "utility" metered Java version of their office suite. This was back in about 1998. I don't recall anything after that. One has to wonder where this new announcement leaves Smartsuite, since it too is competing directly against MS Office (and if they haven't changed Word Pro too much in the last seven years, they have a pretty good go at it, too - Word Pro 97 is still my favorite word processor).
In the great CONS chain of life, you can either be the CAR or be in the CDR.
I don't think it is really going to be such a giant blow, because it really is only for large scale corporate users running Websphere. I don't see the smaller company, the self-employed, or the home user switching to this. Which means that it cannot become a de-facto standard, as Word and Excel have. Which in turn means that the corporations will not be that enthusiastic, because they also deal with these other people. If you want som ething that is really quite compatible with the de-facto standard, but not quite, Open Office is available for $0.00 per month.
It will appeal to pointy haired power freaks who dislike the idea of employees having letters and/or spreadsheets on their C: drive. This way, everything is on the company managed central server. Mwahahahaha! Of course, there are cood reasons for that as well - backuip, legal liability, central administration. But they are, broadly speaking, considerations for megacorps not the small user. And it is the magacorps who are IBM's favourite customers.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
They tried *exactly* this strategy before with the Lotus e-Suite... web-based analogues of their SmartSuite products. We beta-tested them for Lotus back before they pulled the plug, so I know of what I speak.
It crashed and burned then, and as much as I applaud the effort, I don't see any clear reason why it won't do so again this time. They may be marketing well to the geeks by saying the right things (platform independence, low TCO, easy distribution), but the end-user ultimately rules the roost, and if the last go-around is any indication, the products will be slow and clunky, only partially functional, and generally leaving a lot to be desired. You'll spend more time answering "why doesn't it do X?" phone calls than you ever spent deploying and administering Office.
I truly hope they do better this time, but if they do pull it off you could likely knock me over with a feather.
"So on one hand, honey is an amazingly sophisticated and efficient food source. On the other hand it's bee backwash."
I've played around with Java Web Start and it seemed like a good idea, in theory at least.
The idea is when you're running the Java plugin in your browser, you can 'launch' full applications right from the site. It can be either in a single JAR file, or split amongst many (JWS is supposed to download the pieces as they are needed).
Anyway, it is pretty neat and it's come a long way. With some improvements it might be viable to launch full-blown apps such as Office and whatnot (assuming you can get them running well enough in Swing or whatever), although the downloader still needs work to more intelligently decide which pieces to get.
I've written a few JWS apps already and it seemed pretty good, but they really do have some bugs to work out before it's ready for prime time.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
I think that it might actually be something Java-based. The article says:
The web interface will be limited to things like initial setup (like java web start), browsing on-line help, group collaboration etc.
To err is human, but to forgive is beyond the scope of the Operating System...
TIBET(tm) (a Javascript library that's up there with CPAN in terms of comprehensiveness) has the muscle to do this sort of thing: Client-side expansion of custom tags, webservices, local file access, fully reflective.... I wonder why they didn't use it. Or did they?
Seastead this.
They already have shipped similar functionality in WebSphere Portal v5. I wonder if they will use the same codebase in this rumored product.
Their sales pitch is that 80% of MS Word users use 20% of the functionality. If they can undercut the Word license per user they can get in the corporate door. (lots of users = lots of license savings) even when requiring a WebSphere license it would still be cheaper.
First off, this makes a TON of sense if executed properly; it could yield a centrally-controlled system that is client (and OS)-independent and lightweight on the client side.
The key is to overcome the previous issues with this type of arrangement: It should also run off-line, and act like a local GUI app, e.g., not refresh the screen with each formatting change.
I suspect that this is doable using Java Applets running the sucks-way-less-than-Swing SWT. Sun should definitely be VERY AFRAID.
This may also appeal to flustered IT departments that are sick of blowing big pieces of their budget on data recovery. When I keep important data on my hard drive instead of on the company's server, I'm risking a write up, particularly if said drive crashes. When a company VP does the same thing, well, hey, that's a VP, let's fork out a couple of thousand bucks to a data recovery company. Going to a web-based system means even the higher-ups have to adhere to the IT departments rules regarding data storage.
Actually Windows Longhorn will have this functionality. It's called smart client application technology and it actually is possible with the current version of .NET. Programmers simply have not used it very much as of yet.
This is assuming that every person has 100% web access, which just isn't true. I have several machines that don't have web access in my business for security and productivity reasons. Even if every machine did have web access, I'd still have to have 100% uptime, which is rare with ANY client net connection. If the Net connection goes down, you're stuck, whereas now, if you need to work on documents, and the Net goes down, you can still work. Call me nuts, but this is a bit too bleeding edge to be practical.
This BusinessWeek article states that you'll be able to work disconnected, then sync up the next time you connect. So IBM is building replication capabilities into their products. Makes sense; IBM has replication know-how from both their Lotus Notes and their DB2 database products.
Yes. It was an office with a hodgepodge of computers. They had a strong desire to be completely license compliant in case of an audit. They had little to no paperwork around for many of the machines. Someone somewhere had installed office on all of them... everyone was convinced it was all legal, but no one had the proof, rather than run any risks or spend the money for 20 copies of office when their most complex task was a mail merge... we switched them over to OOo.
I was just commenting on something along these lines in the "rest of the world will force use of linux" article thread, and I refresh and here's THIS story, which goes along with a prediction I alluded to, more of a universal communications trend, with the apps being server based. I think hardware will follow suit shortly as well, with universal and easy communications between machines and devices dictating more on how softwares are designed, which is the main design goal of this "internet thing" anyway..
It's really the only way to make money with the trend towards to linux-ish environment, subscription services and customization, and that is going to beless of import compared to the actual meatworld aspect of USING the net and computing to make money, as opposed to making that possible. That means large computing industries will stil be there and important, but not like they were in the past, where the mere adoption of newer technology was the profit maker, it will by necessity switch back to "this is the tool, NOW we work with the tool to make money". Just "the tool business" will go back to second place, like it has in every other business. In other words, you use the tools to work, the tool itself is not "the work". Microsoftsd model, is "the toolis always the work", thinking people are just going to keep shoveling huge amounts of cash their way. Erroneous thinking. IBMs idea is more correct, tools are getting cheaper inevitably and more widespread, but they have to be *cheap*,and make the money on bulk sales of the tools and just a tool sharpening service, if I can use that analogy.
And IBM will do better the cheaper they make the initial install, the cheaper they can get those tools out the door, all the way to "free" install if they are *really* smart, and make their cash from just the subscription for maintainence and updates and upgrades, and that has to be cheap, and I see they are planning on only 2 bucks a seat, so there ya go, it's a smooth move on their part, IMO.
Love it when I get immediate backup like this!
For a basic rule of thumb, look to what the younger people in business adopt,or more accurately what they bring in that's fresh in the way of ideas that they are enthusiastic about, then flash forward one to two decades,and you'll see that is what is "dominant" then. You can go back in history and see it repeated all the time, in a variety of businesses and practices.
Right now, the main hardware interest with very young people is really an all in one portable device that does everything, I mean *everything*. You look 10 years from now, that will be the dominant platform, hardware that can do anything, and will be able to communicate with any other hardware, either in physical proximity to other devices with wireless, or in an internet revolving mesh-like manner using a combination of wires and wireless, all revolving around what the internet is morphing into.
IBM gets it right this time I think.
As I understand it, (I don't work for IBM) the workplace client uses the Eclipse framework (as does websphere studio which started Eclipse). Eclipse is an IDE for everything and nothing in particular, in this instance there would be an editor pluging for 'developing' spreadsheets etc. The replication technology comes from Domino and the back end is Websphere with DB2 as the data store, probably with an object layer like the Domino 7 Beta DB2 integration. i.e. the schema will be an incomprehensible mess, access through the API or specifying access tables for DB2 level manipulation.
Many folks here are acting like this will be hosted by IBM and available over the internet. If you reread the article you will see that this is something that a corporate can purchase and host in-house. Otherwise it would be very difficult to sell to banks, hospitals, military...
Instead on JIT (just in time compiling) they should use JID (just in time downloading) what I mean is that the application is on some LAN or WAN server and if a user needs it it will download the components that's needed for that users task. For instance just want to look at a presentation file? Then just download the presentations file viewer components and save them in a cache. (automated offcourse)
.NET but that's still just Windows based)
The chances that Joe would be doing something very different with his cached application on his laptop while on a plane then at his office desk are very slim.
Sounds like something that Java Webstart and Java Beans (google for them) should be able to handle with no special webserver. (so could
Conclusion: Nothing special, move along folks, just marketeers at work.
-- I don't buy it, I grow it.
Outlook Web Access (a web front-end for MS Exhange server) in Exchange 2003 is a true web based app. There is very little difference at all between Outlook 2003 and the OWA front end.
It seems that MS are moving slowly on this one (which is probably a good idea) and only releasing web based office products 1) when they actually work & 2) when they can sell a server OS and client licenses with it