March 28, 2002

9:49 AM

Globe software just released globeProductive for Windows for an introductory price of $75. The software offers a basic office suite with a single file format. In addition, Sun has announced plans to aggressively market StarOffice 6 for $100 and reach out to foreign government agencies. Sun donated their product to the Chinese Ministry of Education for deployment in schools with the obvious benefits of growing your own loyal market by the millions. Neither of these packages includes an e-mail client at this time, but there is always Mulberry and Mozilla.
posted by KirkJobSluder (11 comments total)

Minor correction for those trying to google more info about this product - it's Gobe, not Globe.
posted by paddy at 10:14 AM on March 28, 2002

It's actually Gobe, not Globe, and they're an old name to BeOS folks. It's gotten some nice reviews, but one wonders the viability of any alternatives to the Redmond juggernaut.
posted by tommasz at 10:15 AM on March 28, 2002

Q: I have Windows and Linux computers at home. Can I install on both?
A: Yes, and good for you.
posted by yerfatma at 10:17 AM on March 28, 2002

I'd never heard of Mulberry before. Anybody used it?
posted by gleuschk at 10:33 AM on March 28, 2002

Also, you might be interested in CrossOver Office, which allows you to run Office on Linux (Wired review here). Only $54.95/user, so it's competitive in one sense (you have to buy Office separately).
posted by tommasz at 10:34 AM on March 28, 2002

There's a good review over at ArsTechnica
posted by LuxFX at 10:43 AM on March 28, 2002

I don't know, so far CodeWeavers looks like the most promising linux-based company, and it's kind of funny because they make software that gets windows stuff to run on linux. As far as independent office suites on linux, there are tons of them, some good, some horrible, currently my favorite is Koffice, from KDE, just works better with KDE than anything else. But still.. I can't really see any of them compete with MSOffice
posted by tiaka at 10:43 AM on March 28, 2002

CodeWeavers? The Crosswinds thingy that lets you use Win32 plugins in Mozilla is nice. But what about Ximian? Evolution is sweeeeeeeeeet, and better than Outlook. (I use Outlook every day at work). If they turn their attention to, say, a Gnomified Open Office, I bet they would do a great job.

Personally, at home, I use OpenOffice to edit Word docs, Gnumeric for Excel, and no one at work has noticed yet.

Any Be users out there? What other BeOS software would you love to see ported?
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:40 PM on March 28, 2002

I downloaded Mulberry last week due to reoccurring problems that I have with outlook on my home computer. It has quite a few bandwidth-saving features such as it only downloads the most recent 20 headers when you first login, (in contrast to the outlook that insists on checking the entire cache before showing you anything and frequently crashing in the process), you can open just the first part of a message with attachments rather than downloading the entire message with the attachment. And when you do decide to spend the 20 minutes to back up your mail onto your hard drive, it gives you an accurate progress update. This will probably make Mulberry the first piece of software I've actually paid money for in about two years.

One of the things that I find interesting is that the biggest heat in regards to challenging Microsoft Office is coming not from open source but from vendors trying to meet the $100 price point.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:14 PM on March 28, 2002

OpenOffice.org this is the Open Source suite that StarOffice 6 is built on top of by adding proprietry components and a pricetag. It's is a very good piece of software. I'm a volunteer in their marketing project (so obviously I like it) and it's very, very cool. It runs on Windows, Linux, Solaris and embryonic OSX (ie, not yet).

I'm glad they took out the mail client from that (and haven't got one in Gobe) as I feel that it's a totally different function. Outlook is a good piece of software (as indeed is evolution) I just don't see its relevance to the rest of the suite as much as its 'fit' with IE (thus Mozilla and Mozilla Mail&News).

MS Office is good software and its not surprising that its the real engine of the companies profits I would personally say that OpenOffice.org is better in the Word and Draw components (I don't really use spreadsheets and presentation software alot) but the real killer is the almost perfect reading and writing of MS formats that it does. I'm looking forward to see if Gobe does as well.

p.s. if anyone wants any advice about OpenOffice.org at all or is interested in more information then drop me an email, open source is friendly!
posted by nedrichards at 4:22 PM on March 28, 2002

KirkJobSluder: sorry, missed your comments in preview. OpenOffice.org is Open Source software licenced under a dual licence of LGPL and SISSL. Although the majority of developers are paid by Sun (similar to Mozilla) the community around it is very vibrant.
posted by nedrichards at 4:23 PM on March 28, 2002