Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Threats to Office Multiply with New Offerings from Adobe, IBM
6/4/2008
|
|
Paying for word processing software may soon be a thing of past if Microsoft competitors Adobe, Google, and IBM have any say.
Google already offers Google Docs, a free hosted suite of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation tools plus online storage. And, of course, there's OpenOffice (and the OpenOffice-derived NeoOffice for Mac OS X), the no-cost, open source application suite currently working on its third version.
Now Adobe has jumped into the fray with Acrobat.com, a new beta site featuring free online hosting and collaboration tools. The suite offers a word processor, PDF converter, and Web conferencing/desktop sharing tools.
Adobe has integrated Acrobat.com into Acrobat 9, also announced Monday and slated for a July release. Developer APIs are available for custom integration, the company said.
"Acrobat.com enables individuals to truly work collaboratively on electronic documents," the company said in its announcement of the suite. "Acrobat.com delivers a new way for people to work together online."
Registration for the Acrobat.com is currently open.
And that's not the only new threat: IBM Tuesday unveiled the 1.0 version of Lotus Symphony, its free application suite based on the Open Document Format (ODF).
Symphony, released in beta format last year, offers a word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation program. It also offers open APIs for integration with Eclipse or other frameworks, the company said.
The free download of 1.0 is now available here,
although IBM's
Symphony blog notes that the site is experiencing "intermittent problems
with the downloads due to heavy demand." It supports Windows and Linux only.
Along with the release of the suite today, IBM announced a new "elite" support package for large enterprises using Symphony. According to reports, the package costs a flat $25,000.
While Microsoft offers free online collaboration tools for Office users through its Office Live Workspace beta, users must have purchased versions of the related Office software to use the site. The Office Live Small Business version of the offering includes a Web site, e-mail, and domain name free for one year.
Becky Nagel is executive editor, Web Initiatives for the 1105 Redmond Media Group and the editor of Redmondmag.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Yuba Community College District Renews with AT&T for Wireless
Yuba Community College District (YCCD) has contracted with AT&T to provide wireless Internet access to the 11,000 students attending the district's two Northern California colleges, Yuba College in Marysville and Woodland Community College.
- Surveys Raise Doubts on Virtualization Security
Migration to virtualization won't be the quick transition that some technology evangelists have predicted, according to recent surveys by two IT security companies. Nor is virtualization as secure as many might want it to be.
- What Was Your First Pet's Name? Lessons Learned About E-Mail Security
The intrusion last month into Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's e-mail highlighted the frailty of some types of data security measures. What are the lessons for the rest of us?
- Report Casts Doubt on Anti-terrorism Tools
A new report from the National Academy of Sciences, part of which was co-authored by an Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington professor, casts doubt on the effectiveness, lawfulness, and appropriateness of using data-based tools such as data-mining and biometrics to fight terrorism.
- University in South Africa Set To Install Quantum Cryptography on Municipal Network
Physicists at South Africa's University of KwaZulu-Natal are set to install a quantum communication security solution over the eThekwini Municipality fibre-optic network infrastructure in Durban.
- Cedarville U Sets Up SonicWall Firewalls
Cedarville University in southwestern Ohio has implemented SonicWALL firewalls to provide high-speed gateway firewall protection for its 3,000 students.
