I came across this article in several blogposts. It states that IBM may have a potential MS Office killer at hand by the end of this year …
The journalist that wrote the article called IBM to find out more :
…In an telephone interview earlier today, IBM vice president of Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Products Ken Bisconti told me that IBM not only has an ODF-compliant solution in the works, but that it will also be released by the end of the year. That solution is IBM’s Workplace. Built on top of IBM’s Java 2 Enterprise Edition-based Websphere application server stack, Workplace can trace its pedigree to the collaboration technologies found in Lotus Domino/Notes and to Big Blue’s portal technologies, typically based on WebSphere….
So it’s based on IBM Workplace. I am not sure what the exact scale of implementation / marketshare of Workplace is, but it is not big. The incentive for companies to switch to Workplace and rip out MS Office seems to be ODF ?
I agree that the discussion on Open Document Format is relevant, but by no means it will justify moving to Workplace.
Your missing the point of workplace. its IBM’s new application infrastructure, and envelops JSP, portal as well as database appliactions, notes, etc.
And because its “rich thin” client – its click-deployable and maintanable. And since it supports off-line mode (as most of MS stuff doesnt), you can truly work off line in a secure, replicated manner. (Remember – MS dont do replication, despite buying groove and not incorporating it into Office 12 plans — according to Gartner).
So its an eMail client that supports leading systems such as Domino (and even creaky ones like Exchange), you can edit Office documents, you can do all your normal applications, you get Aptrix style document libraries – the list goes on. All without Office licences.
And of course it runs on secure operating systems such as Linux or Tiger (All without windows licenses), as well as the older legacy stuff such as windows.
IBM have finally closed the circle, and can now provide you with a completely MS-free environmnet, with more security and far less cost.
As IBM is one of Microsofts’ biggest partners – IBM Consuting maintains more MS code for clients than MS do – Redmond must be getting worried.
J2EE / portal / JSP environments such as this are pretty commonplace out there. MS trying to break Java, and then running away from it merely underlines MS’s lack of maturity, and lack of commitment to Open standards.
You did ask…
—* Bill
Bill,
The whole workplace concept is still confusing I must say. Nor am I sure that a lot of organisations have bought into this concept / framework / applications platform. Espacially IBM loyal Lotus Notes Client base is not moving very fast in this direction (if they can help it)
Not sure I understand what you mean by IBM maintaing more MS code than Microsoft. IBM GS is one of the largest MS integrators I think yes; but not sure if this worries Microsoft any more than it doen IGS.
J2EE /Portal / JSP common yes, so is MS and .NET. Latest reaseach I’ve read show a slight larger marketshare for .NEt developement compared to J2EE.
Can we differ opinions with regards to MS’ lack of maturity, espacially in the App Dev area ?