IBM To Announce Web-Based Desktop Apps

mgoulding writes "IBM is expected to announce a software bundle targeted to business users that will challenge the Microsoft Office package. Unlike Office, the email, word-processing, spreadsheet, and database products will be accessible to Linux, Unix, and heldheld users through a web server. NewsFeed posts the story from CNET." It's certainly something that's been tried before - witness sites like MyWebOS (no longer existing).

Re:how fast is it?

[DavidLeblond]

It said in the article that it could be accessed via Linux, so I don't see it requiring IE.

BusinessWeek's take on the announcement

[Ruger]

The BusinessWeek [businessweek.com] take on the announcement. They make a point that IBM's timing of this release is in some part due to the the delay in the "Longhorn."

Doomed, if this is what they bundled with WPS 5

[(H)elix1]

WebSphere Portal 5 bundled in some web based word/excel replacements. I think the idea was "use our portal, and use us to view (and edit) business content. You don't need office!" The reality was less than inspiring. I'd put it on par with the large number of RTF/HTML editors out there - clunky. Not sure why they did not put their weight behind OpenOffice, because it is head and shoulders above what they included with the Portal.

IBM should study Chiapaint...

[dpbsmith]

Dan Bricklin criticized this concept some years ago. He presented his criticism in the form of an hysterically funny demo program created with his demo program tool. You can find it at

http://www.bricklin.com/chiapaint.htm

Of course, that was the dialup days... and of course we're all on high-speed connections now, right? And they never go down? And they have zero latency? And there are never any version skew issues, because Web-based standards are so superbly engineered with respect to forward compatibility, and vendors, regardless of their business strategy, fully understand that it is in their best interests to be punctilious about following them?

Accessed through the web, not written for it

[truthsearch]

The application is accessed through the web, not necessarily written as web pages. Being on WebSphere and available offline I can almost guarantee it's a Java application. It's copied to the client through the browser and then runs as a client application that can communicate with the WebSphere server. They definitely are not trying to sell an HTML office application here.

Re:Office.NET

[Fnkmaster]

Yes, there were actually two Office projects at Microsoft back in the day. I gather this was when Office XP was mid-development by the main Office group (this was 2000 or 2001), and the .NET scheme was just getting ramped up. A friend of mine, a very bright comp. sci. major who graduated in '99 had been hired by Microsoft and eventually was assigned to this Office ".NET" group, which was working on the web-i-fied Office project. Apparently within 6 months or so of his assignment to the group, the whole project was trashed for a combination of political and hopefully basic logical issues (who really wants pay-per-play services-style office apps based on the corporate IIS web server? not me).

Anyway, the best thing to come out of this was since this was the second group at MS that my friend was at that got scrapped within 6 months of his arrival, he decided to get the hell out of there. People sometimes think MS succeeds at everything they do. They don't, they are just usually fairly good at cutting their losses on the screwups and milking the successes for all they are worth.

Re:tough sell to management

[tssm0n0]

if Joe VP can't work on his PowerPoint on the plane, it's not gonna be acceptable.

From the article: unlike pure Web applications, the new software is designed to be used offline, so mobile users on laptops or handheld devices can connect, quickly access applications and disconnect to do work offline. When they connect, the Workplace software synchronizes their work with server-based applications.

Sounds like Joe will be able to work on the plane just fine.

Others are allready doing it...

[fewnorms]

For instance, check out BackBase [backbase.com], a company which provides almost the same functionality. I can't really give a good outline of their products, besides that they are supposedly coming over to give a presentation any time soon at our company. It sounds good tho...
To quote some of their website: "Backbase offers products and implementation services that allow our clients to develop rich user interfaces that move beyond the limitations of traditional HTML web interfaces. Our technology is based on open industry standards (W3C) and offers out-of-the-box integrations with leading IT-platforms and applications."

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFA: "BM's new software is designed to be distributed and accessed through a Web server, and to be accessible from systems running Windows and Macintosh, as well as Linux, Unix and handheld devices"

Eclipse Technology

[Anonymous Coward]

The product is based on Eclipse technology. It is called IBM workplace client and you can find more information here:

www.eclipsecon.org/EclipseCon_2004_TechnicalTrac kP resentations/ 21_Wilson.pdf

It works also in disconnected mode and will be the base on which future version of lotus notes will be constructed.

IBM is not targeting this at home users, check out these links:

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/info/workplace/i nd ex.jsp

Re:Pricing?

[Danathar]

Read the article before posting. That way you don't shoot yourself in the foot when making a statement about what an application can or cannot do...

>> From the Article...
And unlike pure Web applications, the new software is designed to be used offline, so mobile users on laptops or handheld devices can connect, quickly access applications and disconnect to work offline. When they connect, the Workplace software synchronizes their work with server-based applications

Re:Pricing?

[autiger]

IBM Business Partner here.

Don't automatically assume this is a hosted, subscription-model pricing. Despite all the 'On-Demand' concept marketing, most IBM software is still licensed on a server per processor and/or per user pricing model with reduced annual maintenance cost after the first year that includes upgrades and support.

The "$2/user/month" statement is just a marketing way of reducing the perceived cost of the product ; a "less than a cup of (Starbucks) coffee per user per month" kind of thing. They used the same technique to describe the cost of Lotus Workplace Messaging during its initial introduction. The percieved monthly cost they talked about in that case was derived by factoring the monthly average over three years including one year initial license acquisition and two years of maintenance cost for a licensed user. Probably the same thing here.

Advice to all: Cram on Eclipse Plugins

[snatchitup]

That's right. IBM no longer sees Eclipse only as their IDE platform. They see it as a business software platform.

The PDE (Plugin Development Environment ) is a brilliant mechanism that I feel has a strong chance of becoming the next "Killer App".

IBM will get the credit, but not the profit. This is why it will succeed.

Re:Eclipse Technology

[activewire]

Indeed this announcement is HUGE, a shot across both Sun's and Microsoft's bow. IBM has been saying for a long time that Eclipse/SWT/Java are a general purpose application PLATFORM. This product announcment is more proof. Anybody who thinks this Eclipse/SWT stuff is immature/ slow/ buggy should consider that IBM has been shipping (for over 2 years) their flagship developer IDE Application Studio, it sells pretty well even at $4000 per seat.

For all those posing about Javascript/HTML/ActiveX/etc please read the parent link about Eclipse/SWT. imagine a native GUI widget set (very fast, indistingushable from a native app)
for Java developers. So the architecture is:

JavaApplet -> SWT -> Eclipse core -> JVM

The webserver delivers the JavaApplet which is cacheable for offline usage. The other pieces (SWT/Eclipse/JVM) are pre-installed but could be web launched initially to naked desktops.

Convea... already there and doing it !

[Anonymous Coward]

Old story... see www.convea.com for a web based office. Pure DHTML. Looks like IBM copying few years to late!