Slashdot Mirror
Google & Sun Planning Web Office
astrab writes "According to this post at Dirson's blog, Google and Sun Microsystems are to announce a new and kick-ass webtool: an Office Suite based on Sun's OpenOffice and accesible with your browser. Today at 10:30h (Pacific Time) two companies are holding a conference with more details, but Jonathan Schwartz (President of Sun Microsystems) claimed on Saturday on this post of his blog that "the world is about to change this week", predicting new ways to access software."
[X] Google Earth
[X] Google Moon
[X] Google Sun
Looks like we live in a google universe.
liqbase
I don't mean to blog, but I totally blogged this yesterblog. Take that, blogosphere!
For more information, click here.
Google makes Taiwan a privince of China
Isn't this what Microsoft has been fearing? Isn't this exactly why they went out to kill Netscape?
Between Sun's passionate hatred of Microsoft and Google's competence, it's got to be a bad day over a Redmond.
I live in another hemisphere and i can hear the guys at Microsoft developing an ulcer!
Seriously, if this is true, things are going to get pretty interesting...
Now if you really want to take a real bite out of MS then put a link to
it right on the front of the google home page.
Got Code?
open Micro$oft Word and Powerpoint files ? And can it handle my 100 slide powerpoint file with zillions of pictures ? Will it handle complicated tables made by someone else in MS Office ? If not, why should I try this ? And is there any reason to believe that it will have more features than a full Staroffice installed on the desktop itself ?
Commoditization's a bitch. Ain't it Mr. Bill?
"the world is about to change this week"
Yes, accessing applications on a remote server. That's certainly a new, world-changing idea.
Except that it isn't.
Seriously, is there a business model for this or is it just a way to lessen Microsoft's dominance?
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
lentil
Ok, now I know why M$ was getting cynical about Google. Open document format at Commonwealth and office suite that can be accessed via browser and read and write to that format.. with bandwidth getting cheaper by the day M$ will have to use all of the $$billions in bank to stay afloat....
Thousands of IT people around the world are loosing their jobs as software and computer needs are all hosted in some remote location by application service providers. "We'd love to keep them around", said the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company, "but it's really not that difficult to reboot my little black box that gives me access to everything I need".
So I wonder how long until we can expect to see a similar service from Microsoft.
My lame blog.
In terms of things like clarity, ease of use, responsiveness, an office suite is probably the most anathemical thing to AJAX you could name. If they can write an office suite in AJAX, they can do anything in AJAX.
This assumes the web office is written in AJAX and not Java. If it's written in Java, expect trouble. I used Corel Wordperfect for Java, man. It wasn't a usable tool.
Also, to be quite frank, they're going to have to put some very serious interface cleanup work into this. StarOffice is really just not up to the level of quality in terms of user interface which Google's tools tend to follow.
Incidentally, is it just me or does it seem odd that they're targeting Word BEFORE Exchange?
I bet these guys feel stupid now ;)
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
I think the "GBrower" should be a rich client (ala iTunes) that lets me browse the web and has all the G-apps built in, GOffice, GMail, Picasa, and so on.
Sam
I think I've heard of this idea before (putting office applications onto web) but it never took off back then probably because the speed of browsers/internet couldn't provide the quality most people wanted.
The idea is good though, imagine being able to sit at home, work or school working on the same documents at the same loctaion without having to worry about usb drives and moving datas.
I think I would be careful about storing sensitive or private data onto it as I really see this becoming a prime target for crackers.
Javascript AJAX? Or is this Google's push of Java to the desktop?
Actually, I heard that Google has already ported the Linux kernel from C to JavaScript. As soon as the average user has enough CPU power to run it, we'll all be running Linux all the time!
For more information, click here.
According to this post at Dirson's blog..
Um, what? A post on some guys website, no some guys "blog" is now news? Who is this guy and why should we care what he has to say? His site is slashdotted.
An online office suite? This is going to be bigger than Microsoft Bob!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
My question is how compatible will this software be with certain file formats? Will we be able to open or Word/Excel documents on this web office? And will it work across OS's..
I can only imagine how Gates is feeling..
Add me as a friend!
I imagine a great deal of furniture is gonna be abused today.
Got Code?
Listen, I know there is some crazy love fest going on over Google because people are just *dying* to see MS knocked down a few rungs. Sure, Microsoft needs this, but the problem is with Google. You know what's 100x worse than proprietary formats? Proprietary hosted databases! Google is basically a huge proprietary hosted database application format, and they want to host everyone in the world on *their* platform. It's not "our" platform in the sense that Linux and the BSD's and other open source software create such a feeling.
r ver&btnG=Google+Search ). Then, Google can provide services around those, but the core stack should be something that I can control where I host and control my own data!
How could it be different? Well, Google would distribute their web apps *including* source code as bundles that could be installed on "personal servers" (like on the thousands of dedicated server companies run by smaller, generally independent shops http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dedicated+se
Think of it this way. How many corporations are going to start to standardize on Gmail? Not my company, and I'm happy for that. People, please see through this nonsense. Maybe we really do need the "click to download source" clause in the GPL v3. Otherwise, people will gladly give up their freedom just to see some lame company with an incredible data center suck away all of their freedom and privacy. Google is completely evil.
If they wanted to be good, the proof would be in enabling other people by opening their software stack and allowing for a much more distributed architecture.
One thing that makes many desktop aplications so productive is the use of keyboard shortcuts. That's one thing that web pages are lacking. Yeah, gMail has some minimal shortcuts, but web applications don't act the same way as desktop applications. It'd be great if there were a browser plug-in that user-approved web pages could interface with so that keyboard shorts would work with web-based server-side applications...like the new gOffice.
They are allowing you to use staroffice through your browser, so I'd expect that it does the same staroffice does
What I'm wondering is how they're doing it. Perhaps they export the interface to a "ajax" thing, and they run staroffice in their servers? Upload your docs like you upload files, download them clicking a link, save them in your gmail account space?
Dunno. But I know who is going to HATE this. Office is one of the main Microsoft's revenue streams. This is going to HURT them a LOT.
First, we had terminals running applications from a centralized computer, then we had the idea that we should move apps off of the centralized computer onto workstations (certainly this was aided by the growth of the workstation/PC technology), and now we're moving our apps back to a distributed model where the web browser is the new terminal. Why is the world changing? Hasn't Sun's moto been "The network is the computer" for a while now????
I like this type of technology from an infrastructure standpoint because it means you don't have to maintain 500+workstations worth of software and patches anymore. Welcome to the future kids!
And I lift my glass to the awful truth which you can't reveal to the ears of youth except to say it isn't worth a dime.
Hmmm...where that leavs their support for OpenOffice?
One that hath name thou can not otter
Funny coincidence, too.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
This sounds like this app is filing a need nobody has. Well, at least that I know about.
Registered Linux User #404114 [url=http://www.punkoiska.com][img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/4379/posbannercf5.g
when can we migrate...?? Huh. so I can throw away that 504 page Migration windows to Linux away, Just printed it.
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
"Poor" Bill will have nothing to do... except maybe swim around in his pools of money like Scrooge McDuck... What a horrible way to retire.
If only he had a young pretty wife to spend time with.
Now, before this time we had never considered the concept, but once we did, it really opened doors for possibilities. I remember thinking to myself it is only a matter of time before more people start doing this. And now, a few years later, here we are with Google and Sun claiming they will change the world with this. The are a little late in books, and not far enough into the project to claim the world will change. Nevertheless, it will be cool to see it done (if it works well).
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
They're not right. What if we get to the end of the week, this is all just stupid rumors, and Sun announces something totally different?
I remember about 5 years ago seeing MyWebOS and HyperOffice. I thought they were great but of course they seemed to disappear. Well it looks like HyperOffice still lives ... Google for it.
This is the stuff that truly scares MS.
Will history repeat itself?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
Lotus had this worked out in the late 90's with a product called eSuite (think Lotus SmartSuite written in Java for a thin client). eSuite was profitable but didn't make enough money for IBM after the assimilation so it was dropped as a product line.
Linux, StarOffice, VNC. set up vnc to allow web connections.
each user that tries to connect to the web port get's the java viewer loaded, they log-in start using star office.
Ok it will not be as elegant as what they are coming up with, but it achieves the same goal web browser accessable office suite with storage on the server. (ok getting the files off might take some extra work.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I think 2004 is when most gave up on the idea as a bad one that wouldn't work well in the long run...
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Why does everything Johnathen Franzen says ring so much truer than anything I've ever heard from a CEO. This guy actually seems intellectually invested in what he's saying. In fact, it doesn't look like the Sun marketing department looked at this at all! GASP!
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
I'm feeling a terrible disruption in the force --- it is as if a million chairs just got thrown out a window.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Sorry, I like to own software, or at least have free software that resides on my workstation without fear of intervention. Communal software I never really own -- that I use on a temporary "as long as Google feels like it" basis -- sounds a lot like a M$ rental plan. I don't hear Google announcing free-for-life software, nor anything coming close to a trustworthy privacy policy for all the data they collect about me. Google's Achilles heal is its disregard for privacy protections. I won't hand over my keys to the kingdom no matter what "we're not evil" unsubstantiated promises they tell me.
Actually, though, the concept of versions becomes a little irrelevant, don't you think? I suspect they'll launch a version 1 as soon as they possibly can. The marketing types will hype up a version 2 and version 3, but the engineers will know better. They'll be able to incrementally update their software every day, if they so choose. Zillions of little changes will evolve this suite into something special.
As for MS Office compatibility... I assume that they will one day give users the ability to upload a .doc file and have it render well in their web office. This might be in version 1, because it is pretty damned important.
The world is changing alright. Schwartz's comment might be full of hubris, but he's right (though he might not be able to honestly take credit). Interactive web applications and ever increasing broadband will ultimately trump the desktop. If you don't believe this, then you don't appreciate deploying a webapp versus local installations.
I will be able to install this office suite by typing in a URL and hit ctrl-enter. When they update the software to version 2, 3, 4, and 5, I'll have each one instantly.
The desktop is (ultimately) doomed. It'll take a while, but webapps are the way to go for a large percentage of needs. Even Bill Gates knows this.
If they really plan to use openoffice and other open tools, then they will probably use VNC or X to do the remote stuff. Java VNC and java X do exist already.
Seriously, is there a business model for this or is it just a way to lessen Microsoft's dominance?
If it lessens Microsoft's dominance, it's a working business model.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Lets look at this from the reality side folks. How many companies are going to allow any data of any sort outside their environment? Not going to happen. How many companies will enforce security policies that all work done at home or on a Mobile device be done on the device itself? Probably Most. How many times will it take for data to be picked off from going back and forth from a portal before some MIS manager gets fired for allowing users to use that service. The MS haters of the world would use tin cans and string to avoid paying MS, but look at the Majority of Licensed Office users, It isnt the home consumer, Its the corporate, If you deal with a Multinational IS dept, You arent going to get a portal for documents through a Security committee, no matter how hard you try.
Web hosted office applications is cool for a few things but not cool for most things.
Do law offices want to create all their documents online, hosted God-knows-where and visible to unknown techs with access to the servers? This would probably be a negligent breach of confidentiality in many cases.
With the exception of Slashdot, most people normally write docs and spreadsheets for a limited audience and would be uncomfortable not knowing who was reading it.
I'll keep a local copy thank you. But if I am on the road and need to do a small non-confidential thing quick, I might consider an online office product.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
Sun have had this technology for 5 years...it was called StarPortal, and then Sun One Web Top as Sun's marketing people renamed it to their latest buzzword compliant version. I bet the new version will be something like 'JWS' - Java Web System.
It is essentially a Java encapsulation of Star/Open Office accessible through a browser. Pretty cool stuff, but involved some hefty Java downloads (~100MB?) to get it started up. Once started up though, it was almost identical to using a native version of Star/Open Office.
Marty
Let's put "critical software for airports" on a remote server so airport employees can work from home! I can't see any problems with that idea at all!
How did you buy software a couple decades ago (for those old enough to remember)?
You went to your local retailer (or back then, they sent a sales rep), you bought a box, with a manual, 20 floppy disks, and a heavy carton. As a software company, you had to pay for the distributor, pay for the cost of packaging, and you asked customers to pay for the products before they were used. The companies that had the most power in the industry were those that owned the "distribution" networks (which back then were store retailers and direct salesforces, if you can believe it).
The rise of PC software obviously changed that - the distribution network was no longer the physical distribution network, it was displaced by the logical distribution called Microsoft Windows. You used what came bundled into Windows, and got a new slug of functionality each time you upgraded. It was a good gig.
But now how do you "buy" software? You go to yahoo.com, or java.sun.com, or opentable.com, and you use what they offer - for free. Software as a service has done more than introduce a technical revolution in the delivery of software (no more upgrades, just hit the reload button). It's fundamentally changed the business model. (David Kirkpatrick has some good thoughts.)
The first thing the internet did was allow companies to bypass Microsoft's legendary distribution power. From eBay to Google to opentable.com, the rise of industry standards allowed services to emerge on an open network platform. From community services to dinner reservations, no one can possibly doubt the immense volume and value of innovation delivered through a browser. But the technology, frankly, was less valuable than the services themselves. I did say was.
Frankly, all of these services are trying to outrun Windows Vista and Office 12 - with which Microsoft will once again attempt to recover the distribution advantage, preloading Windows, Internet Explorer and Office with Microsoft content and services. They argue it's necessary to secure the platform, 3rd parties and government officials argue it's anti-competitive. You pick.
But there are a couple of trends running counter to this looming force - especially among consumers. The trend is away from the upgrade cycle that benefits this traditional notion of distribution. For example, when's the last time you upgraded your set top box? The answer's probably never, and suggests that at a certain level, convenience has more value to consumers than the hassle of upgrading. Or ask a teenager which they'd rather have, a new iPod Nano, or a new PC, I'll bet you money it's the former (underlying the global trend that suggests more of the world will experience the internet through handsets than PC's).
Or finally, as I did last week at a keynote, ask the audience which they'd rather give up - their browser, or all the rest of their desktop apps. (Unanimously, they'd all give up the latter without a blink.) All these trends show a slowing upgrade appetite calling into question the power of traditional distribution. In stark contrast to the value of volume, community and participation.
Now, I have been nothing if not tediously repetitive in stating my belief that volume begets value - best demonstrated by the rise of the free software movement (whose volume is derived from its price, its value from innovation, in all forms). The cost of reaching customers, traditionally the most expensive part of building a business, has largely been eliminated - resulting in massive, global participation. Value's literally everywhere the network travels, on every device it touches (and it's subsidizing some very interesting ideas.)
But value is returning to the desktop applications, and not simply through Windows Vista. But in the form of applications that are network service platforms. From the obvious, to music sharing clients and development tools, there's a resurgence of interest in resident software that executes on your desktop, yet connects to network services. Without a browser. Like Sk
Now my office application experience can be just like the rest of my web experience -- slow, poorly designed, and ad-ridden! Yay!
Although I guess in fairness, MS Office has the first two items covered already.
... about the fact that this sort of stunt requires decent, secure, low-latency bandwidth? The ASP wannabe's and the Layer 7 people always seem to forget "it's the wires, stupid" and that is the Achilles' Heel. I have faith that bandwidth is coming. The LECs (in the US) may end up being able to point to a revenue stream in order to finance the bonds they'll need to replace the twisted-pair infrasructure. It'll take hundreds of billions of dollars, but, it CAN happen. We NEED it to happen for all kinds of reasons. Partly to end our dependency on oil, partly to decentralize the population, partly to show the 'Net can be financed by something other than pr0n. Ironically, it's this sort of thing that will also drive LU/NT/Alcatel/JDSU stock back up. Too bad the revolution's coming 5 years too late.
till the security department finds out you have been uploading and composing confidential business documents to a third party advertising based company who reads the entire content, then links it to your profile to taget commericial pitches based on the content of your documents
you should get your coat and start clearing out your desk now
because if i ever found a memeber of staff using a service like this they would be out the door pretty rapid
keeping a hang on USB drives and laptops is enough headache as it is without stafdf members giving away our company documents to other businesses
Maybe NX or perhaps a ajax interface to OO running on the back end.
Got Code?
Its' been done already. Apple did it back in the early 90s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDoc They could do it again, on the network, if Jobs hasn't thrown out the idea with his iPod reconstruction project.
OOo! Oh wait... or is it OOoO?
Fractured Element
Java's been a huge investment for Sun. Yet, not as profitable as they would like (considering it's ubiquity). Assuming that this client uses ads, and Java (it would make sence). They may finally earn a little back at the cost of the time taken to build the new office suite.
That being said, that wouldn't be the best strategy available from a monitary perspective. In this case, java would be considered a sunk cost. And I can't see any PHB's, even at sun, thinking otherwise.
So, the strategy is probably focused on promoting Operating System agnostism. And, if sun is lucky, get attention and prove (to the average person, not programmers and admins) that they are relevant. Hence, the potential for long term gain. In this case, breaking even on the investment is well worth it.
I don't think this is a game that Microsoft wants to play because no matter what the outcome they have to lose, with the exceptional case of this not catching on. But if google promotes it, at the very least, free office software should get attention no matter what.
This is just my 2 cents, but with exchange rates I think it only amounts to 1.
Am I open minded towards open source, or closed minded towards closed source?
The equivalent service was being provided in the 1960's by several time-sharing services.
Nothing new here. Move along.
I too will believe it when I see it.
Why the hell would I want to surf to my word processor?
I can download one for free, if I wish, and it does not have advertising.
It starts faster, and will probably do more.
It does not require an internet connection to work.
It does not broadcast any document I work on over the Internet.
Granted, some of these are speculation on how the new suite would work, but it's speculation based on similar existing apps.
The most useful thing I can think of would to be able to download a copy to a local machine, which equates to some damn easy deployment of software.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
According to what? An unofficial blog with 2 lines in it? What the hell are you talking about?
Underholdning.info
Wasn't this very thing promised some 4 or 5 years ago?
Hey, I don't feel stupid for dinging them -- that CBR article was about some mythical Web office suite in the sky. No mention of Sun, no mention of StarOffice -- the only connection between the two stories is the words "Google Office".
As for the guys in the story itself, though... yeah, they probably feel pretty stupid ;-)
Read my blog.
Please God make this web service crap go away. The idea disgusts me! ------------ Ok now mod me down... can't get lower then i have..
Surely will be some slow Java app. (That surely I will end using, just because has some google)
Wrong. How ignorant are you? This is getting press because it could work. It's getting press because Google can do things like this and, with software already written (StarOffice) Sun is a good player as well. It's getting press because this is what m$ (had to do it) hates this, fears it, and it is possible with these two companies partnered. This press conference was on the 5 and 6 o'clock (a.m.) news this morning in the middle of Colorado. This isn't just a /. phenomenon.
So Google/Sun offer an online office application, which will be fine for single users, then some companies want to use it. Next Google will sell something like the Google mini (see this piece on AnandTech loaded with the online office application server in a mini version... ...and then we're back full circle at server/client applications, thin clients, the complete shebang. But this time all that in a closed box, with an external support thing too. Oh, we had that before already too? A wet dream for the Sun guys, for sure.
My first thought is that it's just a strategic move to show MS they're ready for battle. It's now up to MS to decide if they continue the battle or retreat.
Googles main business is searching.. and that's what they make their profit.
MS otoh makes a large part of their profit from the Office suite.
So MS got more interested in the search engine business.. Google doesn't like it and wants to fight back.. so they now pick their battle field.
Not the searching business as they've got too much too loose, but the office business. Google doesn't have a lot to loose there but MS does.
Things like these happened in the past.. if a competitor from another business comes into your business, you see where you can hurt him the most and attack him in this business..
Shift the focus, make clear to him he's got more to loose than you, and hope he'll retreat and you can focus on your core business.
So either an office suite war will start.. or MS will slow down on the area of searching and let Google have that part of the market.
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
In general, things run MUCH faster on your PC that on a remote server. If this "new" stuff has each keypress going to the server, many users are going to toss it out the window as soon as the echo gets behind their typing every time somebody sends a bitmap to the printer.
Of course the marketing types never test it that much, so they';re all for it. The Bosses are for the centralization and the alleged "cost savings". It's just the poor end-user that gets screwed. As usual.
The plug-in market for this will be interesting. I can edit documents on the web; But what if I can compile code on the web? And colaborate with other on my C++ / C / Embedded ARM project? No need for me to install some god-awfull toolchain; It's there on the web. I edit, hit compile, and back comes my image. Latest version? There when I'm ready. Cost? Free if I dont mind some carefully targeted ads.
Security, or more to the point trust, is my only issue now.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
o Clustering and Load Balancing on the fly!
o Host your own services, radio stations, et all
OK OK I know you're not ready for it all yet, I just VERY glad that a HUGE PUBLIC will have the experience of working on OpenOffice like WebOffice Suite THUS making it easier to accelerate the pace of desktop migrations to Linux, for instance...
Scott McNealy to Michael: "Suck my Sun!" Michael Dell to Scott : "Lick my Dell!"
Well, you could say that Microsoft is Googles (And Suns to some extent) primary competitor. And Microsoft fuels their operation against Google with profits from MS Office (among other sources). If Google manages to attack and harm those sources of cash, they will harm MS's capability to compete with Google.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Maybe the idea would be to simply have the editing word processor/whatever app accessed remotely, but documents could be saved locally, instead of having your documents all stored permanently on some centralized server. That might be a decent idea...
VOTE!
Sun is a wheezing old horse that squandered it's first mover advantage. They've woken up and found themselves to be high margin dependent in a commodity market.
Why does Google need to hitch their wagon to this tired old horse? What does Sun bring to the table that Google's legions of new engineering talent can't do themselves?
I think half the world only need a basic word processor and spreadsheet. I am not sure why my employer paid and installed an expensive suite on my desktop when what I really need is wordpad or something similiar. I am sure web office, if they can proivide basic editing , thesaurus , dictionary and a spreadhseet etc will be really helpful for the people who cannot afford expensive office suits.
I can see now that Ikea is going to need to send around a couple of trucks to Redmond, to replace all those chairs that have just been broken!
Anyone try gOffice? It doesn't seem to be related to google or open office, but it seems to be similar to what the announcement is. It is registered to Kevin Warnock. Any thoughts?
I know people keep talking about your documents being stored far away on some server but I don't think the single home consumer is the target. If you work for a company in an office it is most likely all you do there is owned by them. If you take away the hard drive and cd-rom drive and only run the apps you need off the server you cut your hardware costs. I see large organizations liking this, but the general purpose HOME computer isn't going away.
Google and Sun could do something similar - allow anyone to use it in the same way people use webmail, but sell `Office Suite Appliance' boxes. Plug one of the boxes into your network, and your employees can access your office suite wherever they are via an SSL-enabled browser (if you enable it for external use). You then get to keep your documents on a machine you own (or rent), which is easier for a business to trust than a remote server in a Google rack.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
if you search taiwan the island appears and on the sidebar it says "Taiwan, Province of China"
useless sig advice - Read Nabokov.
that M$FT would use net accessed applications to charge everyone for their own software. But we cheer when Sun/Google (we are not worthy, we are not worthy) proposes it. Don't think we will pay per use? Follow the money. And feel dirty. Very dirty.
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
I guess those guys http://www.goffice.com/ will wonder why their traffic has gone up all of the sudden...
Thinking about it, I can see this doing quite well with home users - people who want to write the odd letter or short report. Microsoft Works users, rather than Office users. I can't imagine anyone doing anything serious with it, unless Google makes an Office Appliance for companies.
One good thing that should come out of this is improved MS Office integration for Openoffice - users are going to want to import/export Office docs to send to other people and the kind of massive user base and testing Google can provide should help to catch all those annoying minor import problems with OO.org.
Haha, IBM is not going to like this. They have taken Sun's OpenOffice and integrated it into their Workplace (ILWP) and have been touting it as the greatest thing since sliced bread; except that it cost a shitload of money, like all of IBMs crap.
Good thing, now we can focus on what to do, instead of who to pay. Good on Sun, I've been waiting for this.
this is going to take a lot of bandwidth to be at all usable.
Maybe this is why Google was buying up all that unused fiber?
my pet machine
What if, behind closed doors at Google they're working on an OS? An OS that's based on Linux, yet with the UI and ease-of-use similar to OSX. And on x86 machines it will be able to run Windows software. And then they make the whole thing all open source.
Google has the resources to pull this off. Sure, they're draining talent away from Microsoft to come work for them...why not do the same to Apple? Make a kick-ass UI, have it run on top of Linux...hell, you could even make your own API instead of using X-windows if you really wanted to. Start from scratch, why not? They have the money, the time, the personnel. Write the drivers for the hardware yourselves.
I mean, come on. They have all that talent working there now and quite frankly, they've only come out with "neato" little things here and there. Yes, great search engine. But take all that talent and make something really cool! Something revolutionary!
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
This has been talked about for a long time now -
I think it was IBM that first championed the cause of having applications that were provisioned only for selected users who paid for it. This was like in the 80s and early 90s. The more you paid, the more applications were available on the mainframe, for your user id. I am not sure about the details since never worked in this field.
Then, Microsoft came along and cornered IBM's market. They cornered the market by making people realize that owning your software actually means having it on a disk, taking it wherever you want, etc. After they cornered the entire market, they started talking about Web Services - about Office being run on the web. This is like Steve Balmer's dream.
Now Google comes along and actually moves forward in that direction, but interestingly, they have most people on their side. Will Google become the next Microsoft?
Even though I think a Web based office tool would be awesome... I think I'll wait till Google and Sun have actually had their press conference today before getting excited about it.
I see this being useful for broke students, in college, than anyone else. The only problem, I can see, is security with something like this. I wouldn't want to have to maintain those servers.
Yes, I said it.
Most computers from HP and Dell come with some sort of office applications. I think people will be more apt to use those than work through a web browser just because web apps tend to be less responsive. I've used plenty of specialized web based graphical tools but only for fun. I'd use Photoshop, Gimp, or even MS Paint before I'd go looking for an online graphics tool. So that knocks out most users right away.
I work for a company, which like most technology companies, has tons of proprietary information. I'm pretty sure that regardless of how secure this "online office" is supposed to be it will be completely unacceptable to do ANY work in such an environment. So that knocks out many tech savvy users.
Finally, I'm sure that I'm missing something but Open Office is already available for free download and then you don't even have to keep a live internet connection. So that knocks out pretty much everyone else once the novelty wears off (which will be the first time a hiccup in the connection or scripting causes a loss of data).
Generally for a new product to take off and stay successful it helps if it offers some improvement over the previous product. Google's reputation might be able to encourage some early success but what will make Joe and Jane computer user to login to Google Office six months from now?
So, google is carving up your cash cow for stakes. No problem, you have all those fat xbox revenues to send your kids to college...oop!
I'm a big fan of Sun datacenter stuff. It's great. Except it's entirely not what will get them to the desktop. We love the Sun Rays (esp. the cheapo 1g), except that they're limited to Solaris, and only recently, certain flavors of Linux. Unfortunately, people aren't quite ready to run Linux.
However, if Sun/Google (Snoogle?) can create compelling "web office," they just might have something there. I just have to run a browser. Then, if they could "rent" me a grid to provide the horsepower, storage and five-nines infrastructure, then we have something to talk about. Sure, "supercomputer" applications are fun, but they represent just slightly over 0% of our needs. An "office apps farm" is another story, altogether...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
For the FUCKING LOVE OF GOD/BUDAH/JAHOVA/BABY JESES/BIGGY AND 2PAC please support OS X. Please please please.
Thank you.
Well, this thing still has to be built and the finished product has to be just as nice to use as an office suite client.
Sun is famous for making applications with clunky interfaces and applications that are slow.
Google doesn't really have a reputation for interfaces beyond staying with a minimalist approach that helps them avoid mistakes ( as well as features ).
In addition to all of that the usual problems and irritations of web based applications need to be conquered.
JSP? PHP? Would it run on JBoss?
They could have new licence agreements where users pay per use of the application, DRM'ed programs if you
like. It could work similarly to micropayments.
It's feasible, there wouldn't be much for a company's IS dept to do except manage the servers the
application is running on (assuming that's how it's delivered from Sun), all users would need is a
browser!
Just a quick thought anyways.
As you were.
Hey, CmdrTaco... Read the articles you post much? Last I checked, OpenOffice was NOT owned by Sun.
OpenOffice.Org based their Office Suite on StarDivision's StarOffice ~5.0 branch. Sun Bought StarDivision and began basing updating StarOffice off of OpenOffice codebase.
Sun != OpenOffice.
I really think this is a cool idea, and am glad to hear that Sun may get some more visibility in the computer world via this. Open(and/or Star)Office needs to destroy the reign of Microsoft Office!
Click here or here.
Staroffice is a complete migraine... Can Google really make it unsuck?
They'll lose here. Google gives it's products away for actually free and is tons better at running an ad-based business than MS is. MS can't use their typical predatory pricing schemes to kill google, unless they start paying people to use their software.
Of course, they can always leverage their windows monopoly to try to do kill google. Still, if everything is web-based and platform agnostic, that will be harder than it used to be. The insidious bit is that google inherently runs on their software (IE), and there's nothing they can do to stop people from going to google's site. It's not like with Netscape, and they could pay OEMs to keep Netscape off the desktop.
Imagine a web-based office application that could be used from anywhere, and also allowed you to download a platform-agnostic (likely Java) offline editor. You could access your documents anywhere, take them with you, and edit them anywhere. Key to success would be a method of integrating the offline document when you bring it back online - integrated (but transparent and seamless) version control would be critical there.
Now HERE is where the real kicker is. Google could sell this system to companies so they could run it on their own network. Think MS Exchange for documents, only functional. This would inherently integrate backups, and it would allow tons of collaboration benefits that can only be dreamed of now. This is such a no-brainer I'm legitimately surprised MS hasn't done something like it.
I think this is doable. If they pull it off, it could seriously threaten MS.
I haven't read the article, but I wrote a little blurb on spreadfirefox.com (it's down, been hacked) suggesting that Google needs to create a XUL office suite. Of course, my intentions by posting on spreadfirefox.com was to come up with ideas on how best to spread the browser. If you've ever seen the Amazon search example that shows how cool xul can be, then hopefully you'll see the power.
As the news article about using "AJAX" for an office program shows, many people think it's a laughable concept. I think it is too if you try to be browser independent. Another limitation with an "AJAX" implimentation is that it's pretty much only been a document editor. Don't forget about spreadsheets and databases, they're both very important in the workplace.
The general business concept that I envisioned for Google was to lease or sell its rack mount hardware to companies as a central file server. Google already sells something like this but only for searching a LAN.
This allows companies to keep the data in house and allows people to search their documents with the power of Google. For those lucky enough to work from home, you would use VPN to access your files. I know you can do that already locally on the desktop with Google Desktop, but document access and search from any PC is a really nice concept.
On that same token, Google should lease hardware to allow companies to have their own gmail-like email servers that integrates with their office stuff. But since it's on the company lan, emails would be "me@mycompany.com" isntead of @gmail. And with hardware upgrades you wouldn't be limited by your inbox size for email.
Are you saying that if I discovered the secret of eternal youth, then that wouldn't change the world, simply because it's not a new idea, people have been looking for it since the dawn of time?
To date, nobody has produced a major application that is used remotely over a public network. Therefore, if that is what Google and Sun have teamed up to produce, then that will be something new. Just because it's already been thought of doesn't mean that an implementation won't potentially be interesting.
Everyone here is talking up the advantages of web-based applications. but there is one big downside: it's on the Internet.
It's greatest strength is also its biggest weakness
1) What if I can't be on the Internet all the time? Suppose I have dialup, or have to take my laptop somewhere without wireless? How would it be if I couldn't open a Word doc b/c I couldn't get online? And if I have MSWord as a backup, well, then MS is no worse off, as they still get my money
2) The people who are going to use this the most are the people with continuous internet access, generally high speed. Aren't these sorts of connections the most vulnerable to viruses and spyware?
3) Server issues. most MMORPGs or MMO anythings have massive server costs. I imagine the costs of hosting a several hundred megabyte application will be harder, as it is hosting the actual application, as opposed to just part of it.
4) Related to the 3rd issue: Denial of Service. If Hackers wanted to take out a lot of productivity, this'd be a good shot. If they could disable OFFICE for the better part of a work day every once in a while, even if only for 5-10% of the population, it'd be a massive hit to the world. This could even rise to the level of cyberterrorism.
Googles main business is searching.. and that's what they make their profit.
Exactly. Think about an office suite that has the capabilities of Google searching. With the exception of enterprise class and custom applications, such a thing would serve the needs of many people, businesses, and institutions in the same way some databases do. This isn't going kill Oracle, MySQL, PostgreSQL, or even MS Access, but give it a year or two.
Schwartz could not be more right when he says "the world is about to change this week." MS Office is about to take some serious lumps in the next five years.
blog
I only pray for the day that I don't have to run M$FT visual, office, emulator, virtual whatever on my mac ever again!
http://www.havenofbliss.com/
Gmail introduced auto-save as a feature yesterday which makes a tremendous amount of sense in the context of an office app. The feature autosaves your email as you type, once a minute or so. Then, if your browser crashes or something and you go back to Gmail, your autosaved email is under 'Drafts'. Sounds like a must-have for AJAX office.
Google has survived by not challenging Microsoft on their turf.
MS Office is one of the applications that Microsoft depends on to keep people glued to windows.
Google is now threatening that, in a way similar to which Netscape threatened to attack Microsoft.
Microsoft's income is several orders of magnitude larger than Google's.
Today, a shot was fired that started a war.
Star Office will finally be able to run at an acceptable speed on reasonable hardware!
Maybe VNC, but Java X, I can't imagine it ... X is fine on a LAN but on the net ... ouch ... every mouse movement would bring the connection to a grinding halt. I wonder if this *might* be a basic browser plugin like MS-Word Viewer. I can't imagine that they would have rewritten OO in Java like some other posters have suggested ... way too much work.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
It was crashy, buggy, and flakey. Version after version were. The only people who could like it are certified Microsoft Haters. If this product is just as bad, it's just a tactic to try to sway public opinion against "evil" Microsoft.
In reality, it's a sad state of affairs, and consumers will suffer by having no choice but to use "free" crapware in place of high-quality applications. And this urge to give things away for free will stifle innovation by making companies unwilling and unable to make any money developing and selling software.
Best Buy can have you arrested
Only 26 countries recognize Taiwan as an independent country. 26 countries does NOT make up "most of the world". The United Nations has 191 member nations. I think most of them would disagree vigorously with your math.
Google has some of the best engineers out there. I really hope they don't try to port StarOffice to the web. It'd be like trying to build an IDE like Eclipse on top of Emacs. In other words, more trouble than it's worth. They'd be much better off re-engineering the thing from the ground up to be about the web and to utilize the awesome power of Google's distributed computing resources.
The speed of OpenOffice is just adequate loading off a local disk on a GhZ machine. I can just imagine trying either downloading the bytecode or a web server running hundreds or thousands of OO processes.
"they've got too much too loose"
:)
Could I borrow some o's? You seem to have a few too many.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Years ago I was an intern at Lotus working on eSuite, a Java based online office suite. It was a farily functional suite, but boy did that crash and burn spectacularly. But the landscape has changed a lot since then, and Google is a different beast so this should be interesting.
I know of 16,900 that already put the family jewels, their customers and prospects and financial sales information, all on-line. It's called salesforce.com and it's hosted CRM.
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about the few 100,000 companies that use on-line hosted Microsoft Exchange. Need more examples? No, I didn't think so.
This is going to be great, I am sure. I trust Google to help the user interface and I trust sun for keeping the thing up and running (after all is said and done, there is not much kit on the planet more reliable than Sun's heavy metal servers IMO) and I can't wait to use it.
Start > Control Panel > Add Remove Programs > Microsoft Office > Remove.
Can not wait to do that on my one and only Windows box. Already moved to Open Office on my Powerbook. And yes, Gmail and Salesforce.com work sweet on Powerbook. w0oT!
the major concern i have is... will this somehow be synced with an offline copy so you can edit it seemlessly with your standard office apps? because i, for one, have a shitty Adelphia cable modem that decides to go down pretty much at the most inopportune times. i can only imagine the headaches that an online-only office suite would cause when your network is down.
Otherwise, people will gladly give up their freedom just to see some lame company with an incredible data center suck away all of their freedom and privacy. Google is completely evil.
Get a grip. People really concerned about privacy are going to do one of at least two things I can think of.
First, if privacy is a serious issue (e.g. Health Care industry) then private, proprietary, custom apps will be hosted locally. End of story. Second, if a less-privacy conscious company or institution needs privacy and wants to use Google's office suite (e.g. SOHO printing service bureau), Google will build (for $) a custom interface and backend more secure than its for-free web-based office suite.
To flash back to the 1990s, yeah, only the paranoid will survive. But this is 2005. MS can't survive for all its IBM anxiety of influence and schizophrenia is the new paranoia. Google is not evil, not yet anyway.
blog
when it comes to MS Office dependency. Think about it. OpenOffice has been free for the masses to use even in a corporate model for how long? Yet, how much of a corporate market share have they really taken away from mainstream Office users? These are the same users who can't "find" the Internet if someone took the blue "e" off the desktop. You're not going to change an entire society of sales weenies or bean counters who are still sucking at the MS Office teat overnight, regardless of the branding behind it. "Google" is still a search engine in the minds of your average CxO. Hate to say it, but it's true. Ask them.
Suuuuuuuhhhhhhhweet!!!!!!! I have been wondering for a long time when this was coming. Hopefully this will be much faster than the java attempts at this (Thinkfree Office). I imagine some blend of Ajax would create a right snappy client. They could add online storage and charge me some change and I wouldn't mind paying. Gmail, GOffice, Google Search... I don't need no steenkin' desktop...
Some settling may occur during posting.
"For reasons unbeknownst, Steve Ballmer has orders 200 new chairs for his office alone. While not many details on the rumor exist, speculation has it that Steve is getting quite a deal on chairs lately due to his volume orders from they company, who has requested anonymity.
This hurts Microsoft right where they can be hurt the most. It's worth noting that their other divisions don't make near the amount of money that Office does; and it could be argued that as Office goes, so goes the OS. If you can access an office suite from any browser, would you care as much what OS you use, be it Win, Linux, OS X, or a Google OS?
Here's some reaction to this, in no specific order:
This could really be online services done right, and if anybody would do them right it'd be Google: they have the server infrastructure to support this kind of move, and few other companies do, including Microsoft. We might remember this announcement as the day the PC died in 5 years--that might be pretty forward thinking, but if this works out as well as it reasonably might, do you need more than a browser platform for average computing tasks? Particularly when your email, browser, and office docs are unified by the great need to search that body of information by the best search engine yet designed?
--
$tar -xvf
Perhaps selling secure access to the GOffice servers to large corporations who instead of paying $$$$$ to purchase, install, support, and upgrade MSOffice, or even just installing and supporting OO on thousands of workstations that may be scattered througout the globe.
Sure it will be free to mom and pop, whose documents will be linked and stored with their gmail account. Then again mom and pop aren't really concerned with high-security / data protection so all they really need is the free access. All they care about is the fact that they don't have to pay MS $$$ to keep their not-so-frequently used office suite up to date.
I can also see Google selling pre-configured boxes, just like the yellow and blue search boxes. Their data will be auto-magically be indexed upon creation / update. Not everyone is like the slashdot crowd. It doesn't take mass adoption to earn Google some $$$$.
Usability experts (I think it was Jakob Nielsen) predicted this development, when the division between 'the internet' and 'my computer' would disappear, so that all documents and applications are instantly accessible from anywhere.
What's somewhat unfortunate is that Google is the one to do it. I think most people had hoped that it would be something like a new internet protocol (and therefore FREE, DISTRIBUTED, and OPEN SOURCE like the foundation protocols.) Unfortunately it is a private business that has done it, which means things are slightly different: Google is the new Microsoft. They own the applications, they own the platform, now they own all our data, and we love them. Google, not Microsoft, is the big brother risk.
Google's motto used to be "don't be evil," which gained them lots of cred with the anti-microsoft (anti-monopoly?) crowd. From the reactions I've seen so far, I think people are realizing that slogan is actually a ruse... in the words of another poster, "google is completely evil."
I wouldn't believe it except for the fact that we live in the era of the patriot act. I'm sure Google and Dept. Homeland Security are pretty buddy buddy... I mean, consider the temptation!
Google Earth (where people live, where they go)
Google Talk (what people say, who they call)
Google Picassa (what people and their friends look like)
Gmail (what people write)
Froogle (what people buy)
Google News (what people know)
Google Sun (what people do for a living)
It's like the mother of all wiretaps, in a single one-stop shop.
This is slashdot. You're supposed to say ....
It seems to me that Google's brand recognition will be a huge benefit in this endeavour, and I, for one, look forward to seeing how well it is adopted overlords.
If this "new" stuff has each keypress going to the server, many users are going to toss it out the window as soon as the echo gets behind their typing every time somebody sends a bitmap to the printer.
Why on earth would it work like that? Web apps and java apps in browsers don't work like that. We aren't talking a terminal here.
Some people here are suggesting that this will turn into an online office app that pushes targeted advertising based on the contents of your document. I don't think this is the way it is going, but if it is then it is a BIG mistake for Google.
How in the world would something like this get past corporate legal teams? I would worry about a massive leak of intellectual property or other sensitive information if the document I was working on is being evaluated for content across the public internet...there is no privacy in an application like this. Even if the data is encrypted, Google could potentially have a copy of every document and change to every document I write even if I never actually save it to Google's servers. How is this any better than spyware or keystroke loggers? No way they would make money off something like this in the corporate world, and I personally would never use it on my home system either.
Are you saying that if I discovered the secret of eternal youth, then that wouldn't change the world, simply because it's not a new idea, people have been looking for it since the dawn of time?
No. The difference in your (poor) analogy is that people were searching for the secret, but did not find it, whereas you did. With respect to client-server technology, it has been done for years already. Thus, implementing an office suite over the Internet is no different than implementing it over, say, a LAN. The "secret" has already been found.
Just because it's already been thought of doesn't mean that an implementation won't potentially be interesting.
I didn't say it wasn't interesting. I said it wasn't new.
their main business is advertising, and thats where they make their profit.
what you're doing while watching their ads is irrelevant, as long as it gets you there.
In 5 years google will have finished development of Web 3.0 with all its wonders, and perhaps SUN gets along for the ride as well.
In 7 years a near-bankrupt Microsoft and SCO will file anti-trust lawsuits against Google/SUN for monopolizing the collected information of the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun.
Microsoft wins round one, but then IBM suddenly appears and sues both Microsoft and SCO for IP theft, and IBM wins.
Google/SUN/IBM will win, and Gates/McBride will cry...
Following the Sun assimilation of Tarantella, perhaps it's based on SGD : http://www.sun.com/software/products/sgd/
So afterall MS has absolutely no reason to worry about Google. All the rocket scientists that Google has hired finally concluded that they need Sun to write the much rumored web office. Hah! What could be funnier than this? Sun Office started as a lousy knock-off of MS Office and soon Sun realized that it cannot fund its development and open-sourced it. Now, after years of efforts from volunteers, Open Office was inching closer, M$ spoiled everything by releasing a new generation office suite. Poor open office has lot of catching up to do again!
I have no idea what made Google chose Sun, a company that has proven track record of failing at writing user GUI software, to partner with. MS on the other hand has years of success in this sphere so it doesn't take a genius to guess who will win at the end. My 2 cents to google - team with jotspot.com instead.
Microsoft must be peeing in their pants.
This will never catch on at a lot of organizations who will never agree to document content being uploaded to / created at a third-party site over the internet (yes -- even if it is 'can-do-nothing-wrong' Google).
As a company I would be worried about [1] customer information [2] my own intellectual property (process methodologies, templates, whatever) [3] confidential information (strategies, minutes), being processed on some third-party site.
NOTE: Some of the above content does flow unencrypted over internet e-mail when sent to external domains. But then mailing such documents to an external domain is unusual and is (or can be) monitored.
- YoGiX
This alliance and Google Wifi is premptive strike on Microsoft to secure and expand Google's market and mindshare. Google Wifi gives them a direct connection to the consumer. Google office secures this. Perhaps Google will use the Open office eclipse productivity editors.
The fiber is a gift to MS so they can digest this latest development.
MS doesn't understand the concept of 'development.'
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why do people think web apps are so great? It might make the Operating System less relevant, but it will also give vendors much more control over us, particularly if we decide to have them host our data along with the applications.
.NET." We'd immediately have to kiss goodbye to £500,000 worth of work, whereas at the moment we are able to bury our heads in the sand and kiss goodbye to it at a later date.
I mean, imagine if all your word documents were hosted on a Microsoft server. You log into your account and discover that WebWord 2008 is no longer available and it has all been upgraded to WebWord 2009. Suddenly you find that your documents are no longer readable and WebWord 2008 is gone forever. Ok, you may hope that someone will create a WebWord 2008 document reader, and they might, but what about things that are not so easy to convert.
e.g. My company has spent about £500,000 developing a large VB6 application over many years. Microsoft has effectively dumped VB6, but we have the VB6 software, so we can keep using it. That might not be the case if our tools were provided as a service from some remote web server. They could just say "It's far too expensive for us to keep hosting something as old as VB6. Just rewrite everything in
Also it seems to me that this model is ultimately a bad thing for open source/free software. If you have to have big powerful servers to host applications, it's a lot more difficult to have them for free. Someone has to pay for all the server time.
I don't really like the idea of losing control of the software I use. I'm sure I'm not alone.
I don't think this buys anyone very much except for the host getting to bill you every month. Especially since I can take my laptop anywhere, to places without internet access and work with my office suite offline.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
All good, as far as I'm concerned. MSN's search has been proven time and time again to be flawed, if not flat-out biased (not that Google hasn't had allegations on that front, too), and as long as a war is fought in the trenches with innovation to attract users and not in the courtroom with lawyers, the end-user generally benefits.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
One of the things I hate the most about java is load time. It seems no matter what I run, I have to wait before it's running. Even once it's going it never seems snappy. Yeah, I know ajax is going to be constantly performing IO between me and the server where Java will do a lot of IO at the beginning and much less later.
I never have been much of a java fan because it seems to make itself very obvious that you're running java. It says a lot when you allways have to sufface something with "...but it's java."
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Name me on mega billion dollar company that has failed. You cannot. Even "enron" the king of all shit didn't technically fail, they just changed names, just like worldcom. Mega-billion dollar companies never fail... they may be forced th change focus, or they may be bought out, but they don't fail.
As the parent post mentioned, there can be various levels of cache. The last level of cache could be really close to the place of usage. It could be right here in the office floor. Infact, this was suggested during the early years of the internet - having levels of proxies. That way if 100 people from Seattle read an article on a Japanese server, the article gets downloaded only once in Seattle.
Two days ago I was eating dinner with my parents complaining about Microsofts cost licensing. And I made the statement that Microsoft was going down, and Google was going to do it. The two techonolgies Google had to corner was integrating Sun Microsystems Open Office, with a DB MS Access similar solution would need to be included in the suite most likely based off of mySQL, into the google web interface. The second Google needs to produce it's own build of a Linux free OS that could install on 99% of all new machines. On install it would detect stable ethernet and modem drivers and boot to a google designed web browser interface or Mozilla. All it would be designed to do would be web browsing and a file system management(comprable to Internet Explorers hard drive interface) it could be booted off a CD or installed localy. With these two technologies being given away for free by Google, Microsoft will slowly continue to die. Google has the abylity to market it and the world is almost ready for it, we just have to convince the MMORPG makes to release linux versions of WOW and the upcoming DDO.
Google looking for dark fiber sales rep. Google offering web office. Makes perfect sense.
Googles main business is searching..
But, in the process of becoming good at that, they've become damn good at handling tons of data quickly and efficiently, and they have got a lot of very clever people thinking up lots of cool stuff. Anything is possible. This isn't just Netscape in 1996 saying "The web is the next platform, and, um... *someone* is going to write apps for it!" Google can do everything, top to bottom. Thanks to how far various open source projects have come in the last few years, Google could release their own browser and OS, in addition to this office suite, if they wanted.
And by the way...
So either an office suite war will start.. or MS will slow down on the area of searching and let Google have that part of the market.
Don't hold your breath waiting for MS to roll over.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Ehhh, heh.
Sure, no more local desktop, no more installing things, etc etc...but has anyone stopped to consider the security implications of such a setup? If that one box serving the web os or the web office is compromised...well, it won't be pretty the first time it happens.
Google Search, Google Earth, Google Moon, GMail, now GOffice....
and in the works in San Francisco.....wi-fi.
When searching for Wi-Fi hotspots, nerds will finally be able to truthfully say "I can find the G-Spot"
* Si hoc legere scis numium eruditionis habes *
Sun touts their "network is the computer" BS every six months or so under a new banner, and they are received with healthy skepticism each time, because, well it hasn't happened in the past ten years. However you throw Google into the mix, and all of the sudden the idea is now a very valid one, and will save us all from the perils of having control of our own machine. This makes sense how?
I suppose it is asking too much to require fanboys to actually construct arguments that make sense, however.
I hear all this talk of Google making an OS. I think what Google has realized is that desktop users really don't care. Their OS is a web browser. Sun more or less declared this to be so when they started working on Java. Sun did it from the bottom up, starting with a programming language and portable virtual machine. Google did it from the top down, writing interesting applications to meet demand. So far Google's approach has worked a lot better than Sun's. I guess we'll find out if the market is ready for this kind of convergence.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
...why is everyone so worried about documents being stuck on the application hosts server? Don't you think that a smart organisation will know about this concern?
It'd be a stupid organisation that ignores this (especially if it's to promote lock-in) so I imagine you'll be able to save your file as an XML OpenDocument format on your computer, no?
Just because an application is hosted on the server doesn't mean you'll be made to keep your files there though I'm sure that'll be an option for those at webcafes or those with only thin clients.
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
Why? How about a UI with the ease-of-use of... Google? In every offering from Google that I have used, I have found the UI to be very good. I don't get OSX. I don't think it is easy to use. I tried it, I don't like it. It just doesn't work for me.
Google seems to have the right UI people in place. That can only help them.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Something like, for instance, I create a document on my PC in OO, then can "export" it to the web where others can "import" it to their own OO.
This would be great for documents that must be created collaboratively, and would also save me having to do things like creating a document in one program and then emailing it out via another.
Assuming they could do it securely enough, that is. . .
I'd be far more impressed with this sort of feature than a Firefox-accessed word processor.
So.. it has come to this
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
is there a business model for this?
If Sun - Google can do this over the internet, then they can offer it to any corporation or institution for the doing of it over a private intranet. That would provide terrific advantages and cost savings in document security, integrity, software maintenance, and more.
This would be a highly marketable product, and a direct threat to Microsoft's enterprise markets.
Somewhere in Redmond, a chair hits the wall...
Broadband access needs to become a public utility and treated as such: it isn't quite here but the foot is definitely in the door - broadband should be treated as gas, electricity, water and sewage service - universal, cheap and provided under the "we get it to your door, what you use it for is none of our business" provision model. No more of this "well, you can have this but only if you also buy this service, and you don't need this port or that port, and you can't water your neighbor's lawn and you have to make sure that no photos from your outdoor lights ever provide any illumination for the neighbor" insanity.
Ten years ago the various states, counties and municipalities had an opportunity to ensure almost universal broadband access: at that time if they had required any and all new subdivisions to install fiber to the sub's entry then 95% of today's population would be within 1 mile of fiber service and we would be a LOT further along than we are now. The problem is that elected and appointed officials have no vision beyond the next election.
Now such a plan would be considerably more expensive to implement (though I say it is still a good idea... some of these $400k subs going up around me could certainly afford it) and a window of opportunity has been closed. We can go to BPL at the expense of emergency communications (amateur radio was still invaluable during the recent hurricane activity) or add a requirement to provide wireless broadband to every cellular tower but this presents other problems.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
That staccato sound you hear are a series of chairs striking the wall of Balmer's office. Apparently he isn't handling the decline (and inevitable fall) of his and Bill's little empire so well--rumor has it they've even taken to suing any former employees who go to work for their most potent competitor, a company named for 10100 that actually innovates rather than obliterates.
:-)
I know schadenfreude isn't the most positive emotion to nurture, but it's going to be an absolute pleasure watching this play out.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
What if, behind closed doors at Google they're working on an OS? An OS that's based on Linux, yet with the UI and ease-of-use similar to OSX
Sun is working on project looking glass Which is linux based, and the UI is similar (and maybe even a bit cooler) than osx. Check out the screenshots
I vaguely remember desktop.com, which attempted to do the same thing, didn't it? I also remember it flopping horribly.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
We here doing out jobs, trying to debunk these silly rumors, and everytime you have to come out and actually deliver on them. What is the world coming to? If you were any other company, these rumors would come to nothing. But no, not with the almighty google.
How is an honest sceptic supposed to make a living now-a-days?
Can anyone say Oracle's Network Computer. It was set to revolutionize the world of computing because it would be OS agnostic - eg: not having one per se, which basically a stripped down one. All storage was to be handled by a datacenter so that you could access your data anywhere. You could store data in a harddrive but then it wouldn't be accessible everywhere. It ran on java and javascript. But it went no where. Who would want to give up control of their data - or better not have a computer to actually use. The licensing cost was based on paying a monthly fee. How is it that Google will make it's money? is Sun really going to give this away for free? Either split a monthy fee or how would you like Ads with your software. That is the question before everyone gets on the "Kill Microsoft" bandwagon. And the other real question is what's going to happen with all those macros that people have invested in a lot of time in? Is their migration tool going to migrate the VBA code? That is also another huge hurdle. If you can't do that then businesses will not change from Microsoft - which means that home users won't switch. What's the point of using an Office Suite if what you write won't translate, macros and all, to what I have to use at work?
I'm not a 'Softie myself but I am realist. It's not the hearts and minds of users you need to convince. It's big business, you have to try and get them to throw out an Office Suite that they have more time and money invested in. That's who Bill Gates went after from day one. Steve Jobs went after the home user and the hobbyist. Bill Gates went after Big Business and won. Once Lotus and Wordperfect was fired from the office space that was it.
So what exactly is can Sun and Google do that Microsoft hasn't already done?
Save Pangaea!! Stop Continental Drift!!
Hey.
I was in Menlo Park the other day, over heard something about Google getting interested in the portable MP3 Player market. And I know they just got infused with another 4 Billion dollars in cash.
Anyone hear any word on this ?
Balmer: Oh just FUCK me in the ass why don't you?
eTrade SUCKS
I just realised I admitted I was wrong (in my sibling post to this one) on Slashdot. I realise this is an unforgivable faux pas, and I am sorry. :)
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Office Online - An improved and a different version of Microsoft Office. Features - Will be held close to heart, until beta. WOW! That's kool, will be something that will come out of peoples mouth. Realize: Sun's dream of Network is the computer. Migration of corporate customers: Not so easy. Unfortunately, they can't use Managed code if they want better performance.3 bd5faf308ae66b4b.html?.v=1 and is reflected in MSFT's stock price.
What started as a rumour is half confirmed by this news http://biz.yahoo.com/cbsmb/051004/828963b816cb403
I expected troll, flamebait, maybe even funny -- but Informative? Jebus.
And my comment about MS office being slow is mostly in comparison to previous releases of Office. My computers keep getting faster and faster, but MS Office keeps getting slower and slower. I have tried to use OpenOffice, and oh my, what a pig that was.
Who's spreading FUD now?
I've used OO for the last year without any problems.
I can't actually think of a single time it's crashed. Plus I *do* need office compatibility, and haven't had any problems there either. This is in a business, where sending out poorly formatted docs would be a serious problem, but I've had no issues..
I put it to you sir that either you haven't used OO.o for a long time, or you're full of it.
http://www.proweb.co.uk/~matt/little_mendls_trip.h tml
I got
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park Find anything and everything!
www.searchingmsn.co.uk
Pack Trips in Yellowstone
Discover hidden backcountry gems. Wildlife education & Eco-Adventures
www.YellowstonePacktrips.com
Grand Canyon Hiking Tours
1-11 days. All inclusive adventures Go deep below the rim with a guide
www.grandcanyonhikes.com
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Why would they want to do that?
Google has a very lucrative business writing OS-agnostic software. As an internet business, first and foremost, they know full well that the internet is the great equalizer in the tech world; it doesn't matter what OS you run, www.google.com looks and acts the same on all of them.
Google cannot beat Microsoft in the OS arena. Microsoft is too well entrenched for that. But what Google can do is to make OS's irrelevant, so that people can buy the $200 Linux PC's from Wal-Mart and run exactly the same productivity software as with a $600 Windows PC from Dell. Windows is not a cash cow for Microsoft; it's just something they have to do. Office is where they make their big money. Take away Office, and Microsoft is left holding the bag with the lower-margin products.
Writing an OS would be a frivilous, unprofitable chase for Google; they have have bigger fish to fry.
Here's my prediction, though... by this time next year, the price of MS Office Professional will have fallen dramatically. I'd guess under $200 for the full version, and probably less.
Easy: Use Firefox with the Ablock plugin.
Oh well, what the hell...
From here on out, it only gets worse and worse for Microsoft.
Google's competitors (namely, Yahoo! and Amazon), who don't give one whit about dethroning Microsoft, are now going to have to develop their own web-based office suites that are compatible with OpenOffice's well-documented XML file format in order to stay competitive with Google.
Microsoft is about to be put in the same position that they put Apple in way back in the 1980's; they will become the "boutique" vendor while the rest of the market establishes and fights over a commodity product.
A Web-based office app is not your basic HTML site...it's going to bend the browser as far as it can to accomplish what it wants, just like GMail and Google Maps do. Unfortunately by doing this, Google exposes their product to the whims of Microsoft, who is in the process of redesigning their browser already.
If the app is like Gmail but even more complicated (which seems likely), even small changes to the browser features this app depends on (some of which are not standardized and were originally introduced by Microsoft) will have massive effects on the app's performance. And Microsoft could easily make such tweaks ad infinitum by way of "security updates" that close security holes by continuously re-tweaking the advanced features of IE.
Most users won't download a whole new browser just to try out a new Google feature. They might not even realize they have to...when a site doesn't work right most users assume it's the site's fault, not the browser's.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This isn't about AdSense or Gmail... this is about showing people a different way to do the same task.
Why? How about a UI with the ease-of-use of... Google? In every offering from Google that I have used, I have found the UI to be very good. I don't get OSX. I don't think it is easy to use. I tried it, I don't like it. It just doesn't work for me.
Finally someone that agrees with me. I listened to the hype for so long, and finally bought into it. It was an expensive purchase (Dual G5). I found OSX to be rather unintuitive, and I did give it time. It doesn't provide enough flexibility for me, though admittedly I'm not an average user. And no, things didn't "just work" in OSX. The machine was a lemon, to boot. Thank goodness for Apple Care.
Luckily, the fanaticism ensures a great resale market. I got nearly what I paid for it, and that's even after the latest G5s having been released in between. With the money, I'm going to build a new system for SUSE. And a 42" plasma TV. No, I'm not kidding.
"The Network is the Computer".
Looks like they may actually try and do it this time...
Coderz 4 Life
The interesting question here is who in the two corporation consortium is going to be running what? Sun at the backend, Google upfront for marketing and deployment? Who will get the check, where will the suvbbscription cash go to? It's obvious that ad based is not going to fly for business use. So wih ads for joe consumer, without ads and pay for it for businessuses? Where's the money? Does Sun just want to recapture some mindshare?
Guess we'll find out this afternoon, sure is interesting though, sort of like what Netscape wanted way back in the day. And what Sun is pushing already with rent-a-CPU by the hour.
Anybody ever think about this one? They track your searches (Google Search). They index your email (GMail). They index your desktop (Google Desktop). Now they'll have your calendar (where you are and what you're doing), your office apps (spreadsheets of among other things, your money), your documents (formal correspondence between businesses), your entire net connection (SF WiFi), your geographic areas of interest (Google Maps/Google Earth), your rants (Blogger), your personal photos (Picasa), your shopping habits (Froogle), and your convesations (Talk) ... and I'm sure a whole slew of other things in the pipeline.
... but what if "do no evil" is just a huge smoke screen for a shadow branch of the government that is building a massive network to monitor its citizens in a seemingly harmless and voluntary way?
Obviously this is total conspiracy theory
Why does this remind me of (the failed) Corel WordPerfect for Java? Was that the entire office suite, or just WP? I forget now...
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html
Front End is the GUI.
Back End everything else with Network.
Marketing & Sales Corporate=Sun & Consumer=Google
Who gets Richer managedcode. Bought 1000 SUNW @ $4.35.
If the announcement is not related to office, then I am selling my SUNW
"I see you are writing a love letter. Would you like to:
- Search the web for a better one?
- Buy porn?"
Sell Microsoft stock.
Yesterday.
D'oh!
http://wcdata.sun.com/webcast/archives/VIP-2166/
Fantasy Football
one could be on almost any platform now, and share documents.
Sure, yeah, that's already the case. Anyone can install OpenOffice, or whatever else. BUT...the huddled masses, yearning to be free, don't know how to install anything other than weatherbug. Office applications confuse them.
With this though...how complicated could it be to go to a web page?
A long overdue project. Sun looks to actually revive with this. Investors must agree, as SUNW has gone up 7.5% today, and 14% total since openning yesterday.
Who cares about broadband? I'm pretty sure that this is aimed at corporations who roll out thousands of MS Windows desktops for the express purpose of running MS Office. There's no motivation for those people to adopt network computing type models if everyone needs a kick-ass PC on their desk to run MS Vista and Office 12. This technology will be offered for running on intranets ("Google recommends Sun servers for serving OfficeNet!") and the web-based model will be for publicity and technology demos. After all, OpenOffice.org or current versions of MS Office 10 work perfectly well on modern PCs, so there's no need for a home user to use the internet for an office suite. I think that the purpose of this is to give corporations an alternative to upgrading their hardware for running MS Vista; I suspect that Sun believes that if they buy Vista, they're likely to also by Office 12 at the same time and then they've got another huge investment in Windows which will tend to push them towards Microsoft server solutions etc.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
no the url does not turn up!
Google, Sun plan partnership
By Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com
Sun Microsystems and Google plan to announce a collaborative effort that some analysts speculate could elevate the profile of the OpenOffice.org and Java software packages.
See http://news.com.com/2102-1012_3-5887923.html?tag=s t.util.print
davecb@spamcop.net
Ever heard of these:
http://www.google.com/enterprise/
grep -iw skynet
If google and sun end up coming up with some sort of AJAX, brower-based word processor, I wonder if it would be possible to integrate it into other websites -- the way people are doing now with google maps. text boxes like the one I am typing in now could end up being replaced with full-featured editors, with spell-check and everything. not that people would actually choose to use it.
Beyond the ads, pop-ups, and the host of other typical web app annoyances... what about security and specifically privacy? Google tends toward rather ambiguous TOS, but Sun likes to clad their TOS in iron armor. Any thoughts?
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Check out googlesun.com at any whois type service. Can this be the site for the office web app? They only just registered it in July? So where were the domain hunters? They should have been notifying us about this ages ago.
Oh, well, not that likely, I suppose, given issues about doing this sort of thing over the highly unreliable Net, where to store the documents, etc. Still, if any of this is doable at all, it means trouble for Microsoft.
And that makes this a good day!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
> So MS got more interested in the search engine business.. Google doesn't like it and wants to fight back..
Don't be mistaken. Microsoft and Google are in all out war, and Google is winning easily. Microsoft is only interested in search because google has used it to create a competive advantage, and they're using it to break it Microsoft's other markets. (deliberately and with force, not out of spite)
MS Desktop Search (next version of OS)->google desktop search
MSN Search->google search
hotmail/exchange->gmail
MSN Maps->maps.google.com
Every product, people prefer the google version, and they're making money off these products even though consumers aren't paying for them. MS can't snub google out. MS has changed the way it does business at it's core to compete with google, and they aren't even slowing google down. Microsoft can't compete with google on any front, no matter how much money they throw at it. Google is expanding it focus to include Operating Systems (they've hired away a lot of Microsoft's top OS talent) and now office suite. If google proves to be as succesful in these new fronts as they have been in past ones, Microsoft will be forced to re-invent itself or perish.
This isn't the sig you are looking for... Carry on...
Browser OS 1.0, a rebuild of firefox that includes a boot loader. Javascript will run all the applications, server storage and all that.
I have tried OpenOffice and every time it has been a horrible experience. Perhaps Google will bring a talented UI team to the project to create something worthwhile.
It would be great to have the majority of the complex work done on the server, such as transforming between various document formats. I for one just need a good way to upload a Word document and get it back as an open format. With that I would want a free viewer.
If the can export the Word format to a plain PDF I can read in the free Acrobat reader it would be a good start. Then they need to make it editable through a web interface.
Next up with would be Excel and some sort of presentation software. They could extend S5 well beyond what is does already.
Brennan Stehling - http://brennan.offwhite.net/blog/
Since SUNW can't write FE, they sought GOOG for it and also for non-corporate consumers. If you are feeling lonely in Redmond, move to silicon valley.
http://play.rbn.com/?url=sun/sun/live/VIP-2166_01_ 200.rm&proto=rtsp is saying not found yet it is now after 10.30 am PT.
Damn, this webcast has started and I'm still mucking around with Real Player, trying to get it to open the connection. The help is no use "Clear yoru cache" well I just INSTALLED Real Player so I doubt there's anything in the cache but here goes...
Seriously, I hope this isn't indicative of their web-service's availability!
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Trying to access the webcast through RealPlayer....keep getting the "requested file not found" message. Anyone else having this problem?
While this may be great for small companies and individuals, I can't see large corporations using a out-hosted office application and lose local control of their files. What I can see is Google-Sun marketing a software version of this that can be hosted within a corp. intranet. This benefits a corp. by removing a huge chuck of client installed software and centralizing the applications AND data storage. This is a huge factor for all IT dept's - managing client software and file security. Heck, if Google-Sun can address the innate fears of local file control, a dedicated extranet hosted office suite may be viable as well.
According to http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051004/google_sun.html?.v= 4 they are including java with the Google toolbar as an option...
Yawn.....
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I am trying to view the streaming but doesn't open on either boxes. XP and 2K3 server. Is it restricted to Linux only ?
That's it?! I hope the webcast had more juice than this press release.
Meh.. All that conjecture and just another corporate alliance. http://www.sun.com/2005-1004/feature/index.html Wake me up when Steve Jobs et al, join the mega-collective also.. G~
... They're not developing a Web based OS after all. :oP
Present company excluded, of course.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
If I was anywhere Near Redmond I wouldn't be anywhere Near a chair right now...
Confrence ID 1112146
Wow, Java runtime to be distributed with Google toolbar.
If you still have any Microsoft shares left, I suggest you sell immediately below the market price. This will kill Microsoft, postpone XBox and the next Halo, and devastate the company entirely.
As part of the agreement, Sun will include the Google Toolbar as an option in downloads of the Java Runtime Environment from Java.com,
mkay great, but why is this newsworthy?In related news Bill Gates has sold all his shares of Microsoft and had retired to his compound on Maui.
One Year Later: With no Microsoft to bash the on-line discussion site Slashdot has folded. Said Cowboy Neal, the mogul of message boards, "All that was left was links to goatse."
Web cast didn't work for me either, but according to MSNBC it's just Google providing the Java run time along with it's toolbar. See here for more details.
Agreed. And if they release a free OS with a default brower that defaults to Google intstead of msn.com, it's a VERY good business model.
but this just means that going into the future, more and more software will become like STEAM - all control in the hands of the vendor and none in the customer.
if the program is located on the web... they can change any features on a whim, deny you access for any reason they choose, record every keystroke, record which features you use, how long you use, etc etc.
personally, i'd rather never go down that path. taking control out of the hands of users/customers is a very bad thing indeed. and it's also the software industry's (and mostly microsoft's) wet dream. they could (and do right now) every sinister thing imaginable.
that's what happens when you don't control something; someone else does.
no thanks google. unless you make it available offline.
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
They are announcing bundling Google Toolbar with JRE (Java Runtime) download. They are looking to help distribute OpenOffice but no specifics where announced. So the author of the post or article linked jumped the gun here.
"the world is about to change this week"
Uh... I'm still waiting... is there more to this annoucement?
Scott answering his last question.
Does it come with Clippy? Nah, but it comes with Googly.
keyboard not found! press any key to continue...
I was a little late to the webcast, but the gist is that Google and Sun are in the beginning stages of forming a partnership that begins with something about Java integration in the Google Toolbar (didn't catch all of that) and Google buying a lot of Sun servers. Whatever.
In the Q&A session, Eric Schmidt says that they will *assist* in the distribution of OpenOffice (whatever that menas), but that they are *not* announcing a new product (i.e., Google Office).
I think that the blog community got way, way ahead of this story.
From the early reports (from Google News, of course), it seems that the announcement is you will be able to get the JRE from Google alongside things like the toolbar and so on, and there was announcement about "working together to promote" things like OpenOffice, etc.
It'll be interesting to see if this helps Sun get Java on more Windows desktops. I'm sure it will help get more OpenOffice installations out there, but (and here comes the karma killing part), I'm not sure that is an instant win for OpenOffice, nor is it the "death knell" for Microsoft Office either.
This is a big test for OpenOffice with a more general audience, and MS Office has done a lot to standardize the office suite interface, and I think OpenOffice is proof of that (it looks and feels like MS Office, and that's not a bad thing). But, it will be interesting to see if the rougher edges in OO are polished off enough to get people to switch and stay.
As for switching from MS Office, that's a harder battle. MS has got some compelling stuff in the way of collaboration and established training. Also, Office is often a interesting platform for third-party development. I think MS has got a few tricks up it sleeve yet. I think MS is trying to establish and solidify its very broad corporate base.
As for home, well, it will be interesting to see how MS responds there. For one, one could expect an expansion of "Work at Home" licenses for companies to get their employees MS Office at home for cheap.
Frankly, I don't want MS Office to die. I don't want to be forced into using OpenOffice any more than being forced to use MS Office, but now, if I had to choose, I'd got with the one with the long track record. (Eek! I said it. The flames await me.)
There are assumptions going on here that such an office suite would have to be accessed and loaded up via the Internet whenever you want to use it, and your personal documents would be placed online on Google's servers. But maybe it's not going to work exactly like that.
Maybe the applications are downloaded, cached to your hard drive. So whenever you go to, for the example, the word processor, it simply loads up what is already cached on your drive first. If you're online, then it will check for updates to the program. If you're not online, then you just use the word processor in your browser window like any other offline word processor.
As for your personal documents, perhaps you can save files to your own system and will have the option to save to an online folder. The attraction to save online would be to have your documents accessible from whatever Internet-enabled computer you use, and for online collaboration.
You're not the only one. I find OSX incredibly frustrating and counterintuitive, and even after reinstalling, the stock off-the-shelf G4 I've been tinkering with still has a serious freezing problem. Not much "just works." OSX does indeed have the cool factor, but the hype sure doesn't match the reality I've seen.
and a nit-picking-asshole filter.
It's spelled "lose" not "loose."
"but this represents a new paradigm in how people use computers. It will be a daunting task to convince people to change".
I've been working tech support phones and in the field (3-50 person offices) for years -- most of the users already cannot distinguish between navigating to a website vs. launching an installed app. If I had a dollar for every user that called for software support and said "I just downloaded the (product X) cd"...
Great analysis man, really enjoyed it. The thing is.. .Google has enough smart people who've seen what happens to companies that make market sharing deals like the one you describe-- such as apple, sun, netscape, ibm, colabra, sendo, man i could keep going on like this for quite a while-- to not realize that these deals only buy a little time and nothing else.
So full steam ahead! Lets have a link to OpenOffice on the main google search page, a scaled down applet version of open office that stores its data on google's wonderful linux clusters and a shiny new JavaVM with every copy of google toolbar.
Ahhhh, how sweet it is watching Bill and Idiot-Steve's empire plopping into the toilet. You wouldn't think it was possible for a company with that much money and talent to sink so low. It just goes to show what happens when you have people with so little creativity use up all their energy trying to detroy others instead of trying to make our lives easier. With MS out of the way innovation over the network will creat a boon which will dwarf the so-called internet bubble of 2000.
Turns out it's just a distribution deal. Downloading the Java JRE will give users the option to also download the Google toolbar. Similarly, the Google toolbar will eventually give users the option to download OpenOffice. There was some hintint at future collaborations between the two companies, but that's it for now.
I'm going to switch to this as soon as I can. If someone else comes up with something better in two or three years, I'll just move all my documents over to the new system... uh. wait. oh crap.
I can't say I see why this is so amazing...
They have basically just made an autoinstaller and a program that (probably will) use online storage for settings.
Because the language is java, the thing is crossplattform.
And why are everyone talking about ajax and thin clients at the same time?!
You'll need more than a thin client to run a full office app written in ajax.
ajax use javascript, right? So it's the client that get the load. Ofcourse you could make the havier functions run on the server, but I still think this could be a laggy experience.
Just my 2 cent
The hoo-ha about openoffice was apparently an effective feint. I'm surprise that with 656 comments posted, no mention was made of Solaris. What Google needs in the long run is something *like* Solaris.
Be heard || Be herd
My guess is anyone with enough bandwidth to run a centrally hosted version of OpenOffice would have no problem downloading it. Those without enough pipe still like the stuff from Bill because they don't know any better.
Just more Hype
The trick is getting OpenOffice onto the store shelf so the masses can save their money.
OMFG, that is Halarious! [nt]
Didn't Star Division had a java version of Star Office way back when?
I remember trying it out and thinking that it had potential but my old AMD 550MHz didn't quite have the horsepower for it.
Fran
:):):)
1st 1st Poster of the new Millennium!
There is no Google Office, nor does it appear to be planned.
The big huge fantasticalistically amazing announcement is that two big corporation (Sun & Google) have joined forces to bundle more garbage into your Windows installation programs.
Namely, Sun will start offering (or "offering" perhaps) Google Toolbar when people set out to install the Java Runtime Environment.
Can't Java just die already? Pretty please? Along with Google Toolbar?
Akarsz Magyar Gentoo fórumot? Akkor
Comment removed based on user account deletion
According to the article Java users will get the Google Toolbar included with Java? And Google might offer Star or OpenOffice? Wow, dumb and dumber. A smart deal for Sun for the recognition, but what else does Sun have going for them? Nothing really. Their hardware business has been comoditized by cheap Intel boxes, Java's not bringing home the bacon and they don't seem to have any vision at all. Sun's selling Linux boxes with Intel hardware for cryin' out loud. You can't really get any lower. I have no idea what Google is thinking. I guess we'll all be creating word documents using some AJAXed version of StarOffice and watching ads pop up as we type. Seems like a real good time. Forget Microsoft, Stop Google.
Ok, I wouldn't be pissed off if it was just internet speculation that they were going to release a web office. But it wasn't. It was some jackass at Sun making this out to be the next internet revolution. All it did was make him look like a jackass, Sun look like a jackass, and make google look like a jackass by association. If I were google I would have cut my losses there and backed out as carefully as possible. Google is very quiet and humble about their releases. They don't talk about the next big thing and revolutions. The deal is next to pointless. It's not worth a shitty distribution deal to have your company made to look a fool...
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Given that history, all this could easily just be more vaporware.
"We believe that this heavily promoted [Sun and Google] announcement is overblown, and does not represent a real definitive product threat to Microsoft's Office," S&P Equity Research.
The Sun and Google partnership is "primarily as an enhanced distribution platform for each company," the research firm said.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/2005/10/04/sun-googl e-microsoft-1004markets13.html?partner=yahootix
I can see it now, rather than a little paperclip popping up offering advice, there will be Google ads related to whatever you're typing...
Instead of the classic "I see you're writing a suicide note, would you like some help?" it will simply show ads for various online gun, rope, poison, etc stores.
-tom
I'm not surprised if Google buys Ubuntu sooner or later. It'll give them an OS for their office-suite. Exactly what Microsoft had back in '95.
sheesh, 680+ comments for this?
Singularity is here, the ever increasing innovation rate mades predictions impossible to the point that nobody really expected this crap.
Practical Semantic Web Log
And "no power in the 'verse can stop them"!
Like the title starts I think that a computer is not just a O.S., a web browser and an office suite.
You probably have to add:
- Video editing;
- Drawing;
- Image editing;
- Building 3D models;
- Mechanical models;
- Electrical projexts;
- Game playing;
- Movie watching;
- Music listening;
- Chating;
- Reading;
- Financial records;
- etc..
Why is there so much concentration upon a O.S., a web browser and an office suite?
There is more to it then just those three, but anything simpler and not so CPU exausting, like the lates eidtions of any software around, would be a great thing.
Seems that people are desperate in looking for a Microsoft contender on the desktop, in the light of Linux never seeming to get real mainstream desktop user market/mindshare.
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
I know the perfect first application. A Web Browser.
I've read where this Sun release by Google is a gratuitious gesture on Google's part. Ou contraire... Sun bought Lighthouse suite of office apps which were kick-ass compared to *anything* in the marketplace. Lighthouse only ran on NeXT, which translated to no chance of winning seats.
If Sun's web suite of office apps leverage those Lighthouse functionalities, Microsoft has an awful lot to think about. Sun's *The Network is the Computer" could just come true at Microsoft's expense. Lots to see, keep watching...
Maybe this goes some way to explaining why OpenOffice switched over to using Java all those months ago?
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
Ballmer: "I'm going to fucking kill google"
& btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=kill+google
http://www.google.com/search?as_q=ballmer&num=100
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
In all the furor over this, everyone seems to have missed Microsoft's major announcement that the upcoming Microsoft Office 12 (modestly priced from $149 to $499, more or less, depending on who you know) will allow users to export a document in PDF format.
Woweeee! Whoop-de-doo! And thank you, Redmond
If this cutting edge Microsoft technology doesn't permanently kill Google and Sun, and probably even Linux and Macs, then I don't know what will.
Ha-ha! It's time to sell MS Office shares on Buzz Market. Look to this graph http://buzz.research.yahoo.com/bk/market/market.ht ml?_mid=32784
Moving to java will probably the most important decision (and best move) OOo did. How many people bitched about licencing? And how many of those will now be glad that the decision will lead to a web based verison? Here's some humble pie (_). Eat it.
The google Sun Union could be great!
They could use their resources to provide peripheral support for the secure, clean, CuDDLy OS that is Solaris!
Then they could realease a bunch of 'puters with it pre-installed, and take Microsoft's market share to the dogs.
Then they could laugh at Steve.
It'll be great! OSes will sell for $12.50 again!![X] Google PROFIT
...or is the openoffice word processor much slower than MS Word?
I was a bit surprised folks did not mention the Neo implementation for Mac OS X:
http://www.planamesa.com/neojava/en/index.php
It is a rebuild of Office using Java as the UI. This allows the UI to be manipulated to be closer to the Mac OS X LAF.
But it also basically would allow you to use Office on the server, and Java as the front end within a web browser. Not easy, but it at least points the way.
Don't get me wrong, unlike you, I actually *really* like OS X.
I like it enough that I recommend it for everyone around me.
However, after purchasing a Powerbook, and then 2 Mac Minis, I think I'm back in the SuSE camp. My primary desktop was always a SuSE machine; now, I find myself longing for SuSE.
I feel like I'm in too much of a sandbox with OS X, even though I do like the interface, and I do find it inituitive.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
6) When do I get to mix objects in PHP, Perl, C, and Java into a single codebase? PHP is my language of choice for most of my work, but sometimes I'd just LOVE to something in C to get some improved performance, or maybe take a perl class and access it directly from PHP... Since there's not a standards organization everybody pays any attention to, this kind of functionality just won't happen anytime soon...
see www.swig.org
php is a library that can be linked with a jvm using jni and both php and java can access the same swig-wrapped objects.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com