Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 22nd Jan 2008 11:14 UTC
Does anyone remember GoBE Productive? The BeOS boys and girls among us will certainly do. Well, with money from India, they're back. "Backed by new investors, a new team and deeper pockets, GoBe Productive is now back with a vengeance promising to shake up the Office space. Blue Lotus Software Solutions, the new company founded by a clutch of new investors and with equity participation by GoBe Corporation, has launched the product again from India." They will initially offer a Windows version, but a Mac and Linux version (using Java) are on the horizon. There is a more interesting bit at the end of the article, though: "Blue Lotus is already planning for its next foray and is negotiating to buy out the BEOS operating system from the promoters of BE Inc, which was the original owner of GoBe Productive, but were driven to bankruptcy as they were unable to compete with Microsoft." In fact: "We are in discussions to acquire the BEOS and hope to close the deal soon." Since I ate eggs this morning for breakfast, my jar of salt is still on the kitchen top, and most likely for the better: someone should call these guys and tell them that most likely, no one will answer the phone in Menlo Park. Instant update: More on the re-launch of GoBE Productive. The GoBE website sees no updates. Update II: My remark concerning phone answering in Menlo Park may be off the mark: welcome the corporate promoter, which, in this case, could refer to Access.
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Member since:2005-06-29
Why bring back BeOS now that Haiku is getting closer and closer to being ready for public release?
Yeah, that's what's bothering me too. Even if they manage to buy everything, they're still stuck with a code that is several years old, contains many bugs and hard to maintain/program (remember that BeOS was/is unlike many OSes out there). So unless they miraculously find many prolific developers who dig all the multithreading stuff and have BeOS programming expreience... well... they're stuck with an old exotic car.
Equally worrying is that even if they pull it off, there may be compatibility problems with Haiku as people have already mentioned however it's unlikely that any developer would target that platform if that's the case... If it's for India, then it's really strange nobody's bothered to do any research and find that Haiku exists and just greenlit some random proposal some guys threw at them...
Certainly somebody's just mistranslated some Indian press-release...
Member since:2006-09-01
Well, better choices would have been to support Haiku or create their own Linux distro.
We think that would be a better idea, but they might have weighted the options and come to a different conclusion. Honestly I have no idea what they are planning on doing, so I can't say what would be better choices.
Low cost office solutions will sell better in those parts of the world.
I think that is essentially what they are aiming at. An EEE PC with lower specs or something embedded using BeIA like MS Sync, WinMobile, etc. The original author touched on that, so I didn't feel like repeating it.
My best guess is the BeOS enthusiasts at GoBe have convinced some people with money to try to purchase the holy relic that is BeOS code. What they plan to do with it, I have no idea. Maybe print it out and snuggle up to it at night.
Edited 2008-01-22 21:16 UTC
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Member since:
2005-12-31
Well, better choices would have been to support Haiku or create their own Linux distro. They could have donated funds and/or programming help to Haiku which would have helped get the OS done quicker. Or made a Linux distro which would have given them access to many available programs.
Why bring back BeOS now that Haiku is getting closer and closer to being ready for public release? It makes me wonder if BeOS 6 or later & Haiku will still remain compatible after this. I still find BeOS useful today but when Haiku gets close to final release then it is better to drop BeOS & switch over.
As for everyone using Microsoft Office on Windows. That may be true in North America and maybe Europe but in places like India & China people can't afford ( or won't pay for ) Windows & Office. Low cost office solutions will sell better in those parts of the world.
Edited 2008-01-22 15:38 UTC