WordPerfect Lightning, the beta Web/desktop hybrid "content aggregator" launched by Corel in late February, will announce tomorrow morning an integration with popular blog platform Wordpress. There will also be new features added to the product itself.
Corel is best known for its set of budget office applications, such as WordPerfect, Paint Shop Pro and CorelDraw. Earlier this year it branched into web-connected apps, with the release of WordPerfect Lightning - a desktop word processor/notes tool (20MB download) that allows for content collaboration over the Web. Essentially WordPerfect Lightning consists of four components: the Navigator, the Viewer, Lightning Notes, and the Connector. As explained in a press release in February:
At the Software 2007 conference on Tuesday in San Jose CA, on-demand document management provider ShareMethods will announce the launch of an open standards Web Office suite called ShareOffice. The company says it is the world's first open standards online office suite. What's more, ShareOffice is an excellent example of using best-of-breed Web Office apps to create a suite - a theme we've been hammering for some time on Read/WriteWeb. It was also in evidence in yesterday's announcement of Comcast's suite (powered by Zimbra and others). In the case of ShareOffice, it was built using iNetOffice, EditGrid, ShareMethods, and salesforce.com. We've covered EditGrid before, and note they also partnered with Central Desktop (another budding Web Office suite).
Written by Jay Fortner and edited by Richard MacManus
In a big move for Web Office vendor Zimbra, Comcast has teamed up with Zimbra, Plaxo, and HP to announce the SmartZone Communication Hub - a tightly integrated web-based communication app that will merge email, voicemail, IM, and an address book. Comcast is the second largest ISP provider in the US, after AT&T and larger than AOL. It is also one of the largest providers of cable television, entertainment, and digital communications in the U.S. So this a big coup for Zimbra and Plaxo (more on that below). As for HP, they will be assisting in integrating the data, voice, and video services on the SmartZone platform.
SmartZone homepage
Comcast will provide this new web based application at no charge for their customers, through Comcast.net. It is scheduled to be released towards the end of this year. This is part of the new generation of Comcast’s consumer triple play (voice, data, and video) services. For Zimbra, it is their largest partnership to date.
In another excellent example of small Web Office vendors teaming up, Web Office suite provider ThinkFree has just launched a Wordpress Viewer Plugin enabling WordPress bloggers to embed MS Office docs, spreadsheets, and presentations into their websites. This allows readers of those blogs to view office docs inside the browser - i.e. they don't need to have desktop versions of MS Office or Acrobat installed. Perfect for all the Mac and Linux users out there! ;-)
ThinkFree is also shortly going to open up its Viewer APIs, for Web Services companies to mashup Viewer into new web apps. APIs will also be made available to Web designers to integrate Viewer, meaning they can insert .doc, .xls, or .ppt files directly within a service - regardless of OS, installed apps, etc.
A new report from the Leading Edge Forum proposes a new course for Enterprise IT - abandon the notion of creating the perfect intranet and instead live on the web.
In May of 2003 Nicholas Carr put forth the argument that IT Doesn't Matter. In case there was any lingering doubt about Mr. Carr's views of Information Technology departments in the workplace, The End of Corporate Computing appeared in the Spring of 2005. While the essays have come and gone, one thing that actually has remained is corporate IT departments. Indeed, walk into any company today and IT's relevance is abundantly clear in myriad forms and options: desktops, laptops, cellphones, mobile devices, WiFi, terrabytes of storage, etc. The question isn't whether IT will go away, but rather, given all these choices and complexity, what will IT become? Doug Neal, a Research Fellow at the Leading Edge Forum, in collaboration with a Consumerization Working Group comprised of Fortune 500 industry veterans, has been studying this issue for several years and was kind enough to share his research with Read/WriteWeb. Their report, entitled Harnessing Web 2.0: Enterprise Strategies for Living on the Web, proposes that IT embrace the development of the internet, trust your employees, educate them on tools and live on the web.
By the end of this week, the Thunderbird 2.0 Release Candidate will be launched. Thunderbird is Mozilla's open source desktop email client, similar to Microsoft Outlook in features. However with the 2.0 release, Thunderbird takes on more Web functionality from the Firefox browser (more on that below). Thunderbird is cross-platform and it works on Mac, Linux, Windows - including support for Vista in 2.0. It was originally released Spring 2003 and now has just under 10 million users.
The 2.0 Release Candidate will be the final 'test' version before the full public launch of Thunderbird 2.0 by end of April. I spoke to Scott MacGregor, Lead Thunderbird Engineer, about the 2.0 version and what new features it has.
The 2.0 version of Thunderbird signals the first major upgrade since v1.5 was released in January 2006. There are a number of new Web features in 2.0, which is why we're covering it here on Read/WriteWeb. The main changes from 1.5 to 2.0 are message tagging (similar to Web tagging, as in del.icio.us or Flickr), new webmail integration with Gmail and Apple .mac, folder views and message alerts.
Peepel.com today announced the Beta launch of its Online Office Suite, entering a competitive market alongside existing vendors like Zoho, ThinkFree, Zimbra - not to mention Google's growing Web Office suite.
Peepel claims to differentiate itself by being "the only competitor offering a true multiple windows system in an online desktop." Users can open as many applications, files and tools as they wish "in multiple, resizable PeepelWindows on the same PeepelDesktop in the one browser window." They aren't pop-ups and can be resized, moved, stacked or cascaded.
The Peepel suite includes Peepel WebSheet (online spreadsheet), Peepel WebWriter (online word processor) and Peepel Desktop (a virtual desktop running in a web browser). Also Peepel WebMaps is "very near to release." As with most of its competitors, Peepel is free to use.
Desktop On Demand (DOD) is the latest WebOS to come onto the market. It is a free "online desktop service" that lets you access your desktop remotely. DOD comes with 1GB of free disk space, with extra space available for a fee. DOD is aiming to go beyond simply being a virtual desktop - it wants to be "a wide ranging and powerful remote computing platform". We'll explore what that means in a minute, but first some context...
The WebOS, in its literal sense as a web-based virtual desktop, has been a pet topic of the Read/WriteWeb team for some time. For context, check out my overview of the WebOS market in April 2006 along with a case study of EyeOS in August. Ebrahim Ezzy covered the territory for Read/WriteWeb in September last year, then Emre Sokullu wrote about the mythical GoogleOS in November. A WebOS is also known as a Webtop, and Ebrahim's definition probably explains it best:
"Server Error
We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes."
And 1 hour later...
"Server Error
We're sorry, but Gmail is temporarily unavailable. We're currently working to fix the problem -- please try logging in to your account in a few minutes."
The worst thing is, I am so dependent on Gmail that I can't get most of the work on my checklist done until it comes back online.
Zimbra, one of the Web Office vendors
we've been tracking
for a while, will later today announce the launch of Zimbra Desktop -
which enables offline access to Zimbra's Ajax-powered collaboration suite.
Zimbra will unveil Zimbra Desktop on stage today (Monday PT) at the ETech
Conference in San Diego.
It's a growing trend amongst Web app providers to provide offline access for their Ajax apps. In fact Mozilla is heading in this direction too, as Firefox 3 will support offline access to web apps. As Zimbra put it, this trend means that web apps will be "available no matter where a user is – at the office, on the road, or even in the air." Another company we profiled recently, Morfik, is also developing offline web apps. Not to forget the web/desktop integration happening via platforms like Adobe's Apollo and Dekoh.
As noted in the press release, Zimbra Desktop will allow users to access their email, calendar, contacts, and documents while on the road, or in places without a network connection, through Zimbra's familiar Ajax-based Web interface. When users come back online, all the changes that were made offline - such as composing, replying to, deleting, editing or moving messages, appointments, contacts or documents - will synchronize with the Zimbra server and mobile devices. Zimbra Desktop is compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac; plus browsers Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.
The Zimbra Desktop Alpha will be available soon from www.zimbra.com/desktop. It works with the Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) 4.5+, which has an open source edition as well as commercial.
