EIOffice 2004 vs. MS Office 2003

ryen writes "Designed to compete against MS Office, EIOffice 2004 is coded in Java therefore able to run on both Windows and Linux. EIOffice 2004 offers features which should get a few users' attention, but does it have enough to have people switching from MS Office? Flexbeta has the review." That's Evermore Integrated Office, if you're wondering.

Comments

Both Platforms? WOW!

[the MaD HuNGaRIaN]

"Written in Java so it can run on both Windows and Linux"

hehe, what about all the other platforms there's a JVM for? Like, uh, OS X? Solaris?

How myopic.

Re:Both Platforms? WOW!

[mrtrumbe]

I respect your opinion, but wholeheartedly disagree.

So long as you stay away from any native calls, Java code is VERY portable across JVMs (including across systems). GUIs do tend to have some problems, but I tend to avoid pure Java GUIs anyway, due to latency issues (which tend to rear their ugly heads more often in live trading scenarios). If I plan sufficiently, keeping my core infrastructure/business logic in pure Java, using JNI sparingly, and write all of my GUIs in QT/GTK, I have no problems with porting.

So why bother with Java at all? (I can picture you asking the question, so I may as well answer it.) Simple: I find it soooooo much easier to write good code in Java than C/C++. While I've heard some denounce Java's framework classes as a messy C++ superset, I disagree. It's easy to use, well documented (java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/ may be all you ever need) and easy to refactor. Combine that with a kick-ass tool like IDEA (www.intellij.com) and you have my personal dream environment for development.

From my POV, so long as you keep GUI issues out of the equation, Java is as close to the perfect development environment I'm likely to get. I work in a setting where I can keep my business logic and infrastructure pretty well removed from the GUI level. This makes things easy for me. YMMV.

Taft

It looks interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

But the web site doesn't have any trial versions.

Its hard to put down $150 without seeing if it will actually open up my spreadsheet and documents.

The review had an eval copy, but no such animal on the web site. Too bad; Do you have to wait for a warez copy to figure out if its worth buying? Makes me think they have something to hide.

Believe it or not, I think real Excel compatibility is the hardest to achieve because there are so many different macros (VB Script), charting features, and other goodies in Excel that its easy to get "locked in".

Sticking with OO.o

[goldspider]

I'm more inclined to trust a program built/optimized speficically for different platforms than one that claims to be compatible with all of them.

I'm sticking with OpenOffice.org for now. Just MHO.

Re:Java?

[rleibman]

Re: Java GUIs being slow
They can actually be quite fast and responsive, if written correctly. I run eclipse on my PIII500Mhz on Fedora Core 1 and it runs very nicely. Some changes coming down the line in Java 1.5 might actually make it even more responsive, for some things even faster than typical C++ applications (the run-time optimizer cannot easily be duplicated in statically compiled languages.)

Interface is copyrightable?

[at2000]

IIRC, Lotus Development Corp v Paperback Software Intl demonstrated us in 1990 that copying the look and feel in exact form is copyright infringement.

Language Indifference

[MidKnight]

Designed to compete against MS Office, EIOffice 2004 is coded in Java...

When are people going to learn that consumers don't care what language a program is written in? For some reason, the Evermore Software folks are attempting to use this as a marketing bullet point (it's the first point on their web page, even), when Joe User really just wants to know why it's better than MS Office.

I write Java to pay the bills, and as such I'm a big supporter of the platform. But users just don't care. In fact because of the Microsoft FUD machine, saying it's Java might even be a turn-off to quasi-technical people. I once had a government purchasing manager say "Java? We're moving away from that because Microsoft no longer supports it." Idiotic yes, but to paraphrase Forrest Gump: Customer is as Customer does.

Writing Java apps is key for the software developer, because your market suddenly is no longer linked to the hardware platform your customers have. You can sell it to anybody. But from the customer standpoint it simply doesn't matter.

Re:It's becoming a cliche, but ...

[js3]

I disagree. To effectively overtake a product with a commanding lead in the market you practically have to make a clone of it and sell it cheaper. Anything different is too different for many people and they won't switch.

Many times people just want something better not different. I want a better government not a different one and so on and so forth.

No real place for this

[devilsadvoc8]

What is the market for this thing? Its not going to compete against MS Office- no db just to start- and it can't compete with OpenOffice - price alone- so who's going to use it?

While I am not the biggest fan of OpenOffice (disclaimer I have tried OO and deinstalled it in favor of MS Office- flame away)I would use it in a second over this thing because OO is free and OO really does have some nice features.

Re:It's becoming a cliche, but ...

[DukeyToo]

Actually, it looks like they have innovated in their own way. They have a common file format for all of their office apps, and they have focused on building it from the ground up to support robust linking of data between documents. Their focus is on integration, because that is the weakness of their competitors. It seems to me that they have looked at what MS did, and taken the good stuff and left out the bad. Can you say "embrace and extend"?

From their whitepaper...

None of the Office suites currently sold today constitutes a REAL Office. Instead, they are separate components packaged together for marketing purposes.
Microsoft adopted this approach, in part to gain an advantage over software publishers that did not have a complete line of products. Unfortunately, the result is based on domination rather than innovation - an environment that touts minor enhancements yet gives many users no economic reason to incur the cost of an upgrade.
Evermore Software believes software users deserve a better solution than a system that requires the launching of four or five separate applications just to complete one task. This premise guided our development of Evermore Integrated Office - the only REAL Office - the first coherently-designed, well-conceived Office suite. It is one integrated program, not many disjointed applications, and delivers one standard user interface in screen layout, display screen style, keystroke usage, dialog boxes, menus and submenus, icon sets, function key usage, help system and file format. It stores all data in one file format - not the several file formats used by others. It saves all data related to any one project in one file or a binder. And, when the user changes the source data of linked data, EIO applies that change automatically, immediately, correctly, to all other uses of that same source data to assure data synchronization.
Evermore Software believes that true integration distinguishes the Office