Forum Moderators: phranque
In the clearest sign yet that the big guns are preparing to step up the battle for Web Office, Microsoft has said it is considering releasing a version of Microsoft Works (the poor cousin of Microsoft Office) as a web suite. The desktop version of Works retails for $50 and includes a calendar, word processor, spreadsheets, Web Browser and e-mail. While its currently positioned as a home productivity toolset (to do your accounts, write letters, etc), it could pretty easily be re-positioned as a (small) business web office suite.In any case - because Works includes basic word processing and spreadsheet software, to web-enable that and bundle it as a suite would be a step above what both Microsoft and Google currently offer. Right now Microsoft has Office Live (web hosting, email, project collaboration) and Google offers Apps For Your Domain (email, IM, calendar and website creator).
Microsoft to put Works Suite onto Web [blogs.zdnet.com]
releasing a version of Microsoft Works [...] as a web suite
How much recoding do we think is involved in porting a suite of Win32 applications to the web?
How much recoding do we think is involved in porting a suite of Win32 applications to the web?
If its based upon WinFX, .Net 3 or whatever they call it, i'm sure they could do the conversion pretty quickly and it would yield a fully feature rich end user experience.
How much recoding do we think is involved in porting a suite of Win32 applications to the web?If its based upon WinFX, .Net 3 or whatever they call it, i'm sure they could do the conversion pretty quickly and it would yield a fully feature rich end user experience.
...considering the age of "Works" and the fact that it has been a give-away bundled with most new PC's, it's more likely built on top of old 16-bit DOS code.
Since the web is "stateless" the entire suite of programs would need to be coded from scratch to make them do anything useful in any efficient manner.
Then you've got to deal with MS proprietary file formats, and not just with competitors files -- MS-Works word processor can't edit an MS-Word file.
This "announcement" is a puff of smoke... typical MS posturing... But, just as they did with MS-IE v. Navigator, I'm sure they will release some (really crappy) services / software for free just to take the incentive away for potential competitors.
Having actually done porting to and from Windows, my experience is that its portability percentage is probably negative: that is, it would be quicker and easier to write it over from scratch than to port it. And the more closely you follow Microsoft coding guidelines, the more anti-portable the resulting code is. (This is not an insignificant part of the barrier MS tries to raise in front of competitors.)
As for a giant step forward: OpenOffice is already there, with greater functionality, standard file format, portability of both programs and data, and unbeatable price.
So what's the advantage of Microsoft doing this? Anyone that bit on this offer would be a moron, and therefore self-selected as an ideal target for other MS marketing initiatives.
MS-Works word processor can't edit an MS-Word file.I've never used Works, but I reinstalled Windows, etc. for my neighbour a few weeks ago and his version of Works actually included MS Word!
Kaled.
As for a giant step forward: OpenOffice is already there
Otherwise, it sounds like some people are jumping on the bashing wagon a bit early.
This is not a new software MS is announcing. It's a hosted suite of applications. This would mean that you can go anywhere, log onto the MS site and use word processing, spreadsheet and other applications directly from your browser.
While OpenOffice may be great for the home office and student crowd to my knowledge it's not even making a dent in the corporate/enterprise markets. Microsoft Office leads this area, and if MS launches a web accessible suite that is compatible with Office then there's going to be a good uptake. There are quite a number of pluses for remote access to applications like this. We're seeing the beginning of this with the Google web apps now. MS is just keeping up with Google's offerings with this effort.
Bill Gates was very big on the thin client back in the 90s. Now that the AJAX apps are becoming more usable why not have internet-only versions of these apps? If anyone knows Office application software I'd say Microsoft has some good experience under their belt.
If anyone knows Office application software I'd say Microsoft has some good experience under their belt.
The reason I asked about the recoding effort is this:
Microsoft has a lot of experience coding large, feature-rich apps which need lots of horsepower to run them. MSFT is not particularly good at delivering all of the features it promises (look at Vista, Office), and not particular good at delivering the product in the time frame it initially promises (look at Vista, Office).
Compared to rich client, Microsoft appears to have much much less experience coding thin-client applications.
Several people appear to agree with me that porting Works to the web is essentially a complete rewrite. So:-
* when do we think "Works-for-the-Web"(tm) will actually ship?
* what subset of the current Works features will it actually include?
* will it require IE/ActiveX to work? will it run on Firefox? Opera?
* will it require a paid subscription?
* will MSFT provide a service level guarantee for subscribers?
* what happens if "onlinemsworks.microsoft.com" is down for maintenance the morning you need to finish a set of figures for a crucial meeting? is MSFT liable for damages? :-)
* what happens if they get hacked, and your data is sold to the russians, and you get a phone call saying "pay up, or well start phoning your clients and telling them you've released their personal info"...
"Thin client" is a cool-sounding phrase. Right now I wouldn't put business-critical data on any server I don't directly control.
Are we on the same planet?
Wow, Microsoft isn't good at what its doing [snip irrelevant bits] and they don't deliver anything good?
Let me guess, you're really really excited about transparent windows on your desktop? :-)
Check through the list of What's been yanked from Vista, and when [itnews.com.au] and maybe you'll understand why some of us have lost our enthusiasm for it - in the many, many years we've been waiting for it.
In case you think I'm anti-MSFT, I should point out that I'm equally hacked off with SuSE for pulling Reiser4 support out of their linux distro - I have systems running very large Reiser4 filesystems which I now can't upgrade.
