Gobe Software, the company behind the popular Gobe Productive office suite has re-instated their web presense and published the following short message on their site: “We are currently working on the next version of Gobe Productive, the popular award winning software. Stay tune for more news on products, distributors and resellers.”In other office news, OpenOffice.org has released the SDK for their recent 1.0.2 release.
TextMaker for Linux had a second beta.
AbiWord is preparing for their GTK+ 2.x port, but from the stable branch version 1.0.5 was released recently.
It would be interesting to learn more about their comeback plans.
I love using gobeProductive 3 and I regret not buying the BeOS version when they carried it.
Brian N
Wicked news…
: )
OMG! Not more software! Why don’t Gobe and SoftMaker unify there efforts and make *one* good office suite! Sorry about that, but you knew it was coming
Seriously, though, the features list for SoftMaker looks cool. I’ve had most of those features (automatic backup, automatic update, worldwide access) for awhile now, courtesy of the Subversion (previously CVS) server in my basement, but it’d be nice to see these benifets coming to the masses. I personally hope they build some kind of version control into this. I can’t tell you the number of times my Dad has nearly killed his computer for losing half an hour of work. The Linux demo has a major flaw though — it doesn’t use the native X font system, and hence ignores the DPI setting. In 2003, I should not have to tell companies that 12 point means 1/6 of an inch, not 16 pixels! Otherwise, the software is pretty nifty. From a cursory look, it’s MS importer seems quite good. That alone might be enough of a reason to throw some money their way.
PS> Though it looks like it, SoftMaker is most definately *not* a Qt app. It just emulates the KDE 3.0.x look&feel, as well as Win98 and others.
presence
Mac OS X port of Productive. This is an relatively open market for midrange office suites.
its good to hear that gobe are back…:D
Bleh, still no native FreeBSD…
Gobe rocked and I hope they succeed. It would be really nice if they would offer their product for both Windows,Linux and Apple OS X.
Cheers
It will be even nicer if they do not skip their native platform this time.
No BeOS support… bad news
> AbiWord is preparing for their GTK+ 2.x port
I thought the GTK+ 2.x port had begun a long time ago, and was already near completion !?
http://www.linuxrising.com/files/abiword114.png
Did they GPL it or not? What happened?
It’s great to hear something happening with Gobe. It would have been a shame to have such a good product wither away. With Zeta around the corner, maybe they will finish their port of Gobe 3 for BeOS. It seems they would have more sales on Be version than a Linux version. It would be cool for MacOSX. I wonder if Apple had anything to do with it. With Apple trying to move away from MS dependancy, an Office suite would be great.
Is available (even as a binary for FreeBSD 4.8).
I used Gobe for BeOS and still am. It’s great. But BeOS is dead.
Yay!!!!! I wonder whta the lowdown is??? 🙂
For the OSNews team.
If you are going to combine multiple news items under one heading (like this one) could you please make it so that they at least all get a mention in the synopsis?
If I was interested in Abiword, but didn’t really care enough about Gobe to click on “Read More”, then I’d never know that news was there.
(As it happens I’m more interested in Gobe than Abiword, but that’s just me, and just this article).
april fools has come and gone and we have had plenty of jokes for this year
and this isnt even a very good one
:oP
Microsoft cuts air supply. Therefore:
o Learn to hold your breath.
o Learn to breath nitrogen.
o Learn to get away form Microsoft (this means getting away from Microsoft territory, i.e., Windows).
Good luck.
>I thought the GTK+ 2.x port had begun a long time ago,
Yes, this is what my article says. That the abiword team prepares the gtk2 version as we speak, not that they are preparing to start it. You misunderstood it.
>and was already near completion !?
Well, that it is not…
>for the osnews team…
Not always there is enough space in the headline. Most of the time, this is how we do it, or all the info are on the teaser section of the article. This time, I wanted to give more emphasis on Gobe, and only after 10 minutes I actually added the “body” section of the article, as I thought just to give a bit more office news…
Stop trolling around telling something is death every time you hear some news which clearly tells you it isn’t.
I hate it when I get positive thoughts about BeOS and BeOS software…
Is there any more detail to this news anywhere? How? Why? When? What? What platform?
I second the comment above: hopefully they wont skip their original platform this time.
Anyway… if this is true and Gobe is back in business, then I welcome them with open arms and wish them better luck this time!
Was there ever or is there supposed to be a Linux version?
yay for gobe!
As a user of gobeProductive (thanks, OSNews, for letting me win that contest), this brings a new warmth to my heart. I eagerly await further news on this development, and … hopefully … the patch that they once said thay would release, but never did …
(Not to mention some more work being done on the Linux version … I think I still have the Alpha somewhere around here.)
There was a Linux beta of Gobe Productive 3.0, hope they don’t cancel it…
i really wonder where they see a market for their product?!
can we have one thread without BeOS
The song says it all …
BeOS,
It’s The OS
With all of my schedules set, into the future I ride
Anyways. I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “It’s OSNews, BeOS isn’t the ONLY operating system out there” – but really, you should be thankful that people talk about it. Imagine a world where all everyone on OSNews talked about was how awesome Windows ME is. Scary, isn’t it?
And in this thread, it’s quasi-relevant, given that gobeProductive was first released on BeOS. Granted, if you look at the Ordering information, gobe no longer carries any BeOS software – but people can hope, can’t they?
that with so many free (in every sense) software around, the air gets thinner and thinner for small commercial vendors like gobe, so i don’t give them much of a chance to succeed, really!
Having a user interface that copy’s MicroSoft Word isn’t going to get you anywhere in the marketplace. I hope they make it.
I meant to buy 3.0 before they pulled the site, but never got around to it. Now that the site is back up, online ordering is not available and [email protected] isn’t a vaild address anymore. Any way I can order a boxed copy or am I out of luck?
I remember that when ordering 3.0 you would get a coupon in the box for a Windows or Linux version depeding on which you bought.
Assuming they sell the BeOS version again and I buy either the Linux or Windows version, would a coupon still be available I’d like to get the BeOS version at a reuced price or free with the coupon.
According to the ordering page, everything should be working by April 15th, 2003. I myself emailed the [email protected] address, and didn’t receive a “user not found” error, so perhaps the address is operational again?
No. You can’t have a thread without a mention of BeOS in it if the news item is about a company that started its life, and sold the most product, on BeOS. Gobe was a BeOS reseller, for crying out loud. Release 5 of BeOS came with the Gobe LOGO on the CD!
And here I sit, responding to this idiocy…
One of the things I like about Productive is the fact that I can legally install it on every computer in my home. Try doing that with Office and you’re likely to get yourself an informative conversation from the person you talk to to get your activation key. Sometimes they aren’t even polite about it. People like compatibilty, but with computers hitting the sub 500$ market from the major OEMs, people are more concerned with cost and who is going to pay 70% of the cost of their system for word, excel and powerpoint? Especially when they can only use it on that one particular system. With the proper marketing and better import filters, they could stand a chance. It might also help if people stop being so cheap and pay for software instead of expecting everything for free but that is for another discussion all together.
“that with so many free (in every sense) software around, the air gets thinner and thinner for small commercial vendors like gobe, so i don’t give them much of a chance to succeed, really!”
Very little free software is a threat to commerical software. No free office suite out there can touch GP3.
At anyrate this made my day. So glad to see they are back. I have my copy of GP3 and love it. Also have that linux version coupon to cash in some day. I do wonder how this came about. Did some VC come in with some money and a interest in them getting a new version for something out there?
Will there be a MacOS X version?
Not likely… after Claris Works was sold to Apple (which bacame AppleWorks), the management started a new company called Gobe Software. At first, they only provided Gobe Productive for BeOS. Most likely, when Claris was sold to Apple, there may have been a clause that any new company created by the original team could not compete against AppleWorks. This is normal in the U.S. for cases like this.
What market does Gobe see?
I am NOT speaking for Gobe Software, but if you haven’t kept up on the tech news lately, then you may be please to know that the next release of BeOS (R6) will be released soon by YellowTab (www.yellowtab.com) under the name of Zeta. According the the reports from CeBit, this was due to a contract between Be Inc. and YellowTab BEFORE Be sold the IP to Palm Inc. There has been discussion on YellowTab’s forums about the problem of Gobe Ploductive avalibility. The only answer that YellowTab provided is that they were working with a “3rd party” on the issue.
James Thurman
Student of Business
Southwest Missouri State College
Sorry
I messed up my signature 
James Thurman
Student of Business
Southwest Missouri State University
“Very little free software is a threat to commerical software. No free office suite out there can touch GP3.”
so what, from an ordinary users perspective, make gobe stand apart from openoffice (in writing letters etc.), means why should i pay for it instead of using oo which is free-i’m really curious…?
“I am NOT speaking for Gobe Software, but if you haven’t kept up on the tech news lately, then you may be please to know that the next release of BeOS (R6) will be released soon by YellowTab (www.yellowtab.com) under the name of Zeta.”
not be mean, but i don’t see exactly a bright future for zeta also…
Very little free software is a threat to commerical software. No free office suite out there can touch GP3.
>>>>>>>>
This one’s pretty funny.
Is this why Apache is displacing IIS in the webserver industry?
Is this why Linux is threatening NT in multiple markets?
This why GCC has been a better compiler than Visual C++ for years?
Or why even my high-school mathbook was typeset using LaTeX?
Or why PostgreSQL and MySQL are making inroads in the low-end DB market?
Or why some of the best XML and Java tools out there come out of the Apache project?
Or why open-source scripting languages like Perl and Python are so popular?
Having used GP 2.0 on BeOS, I highly doubt there is anything in 3.0 that OpenOffice cannot do. If you’d like to post exactly why “no free office suite can touch GP” than I’ll reconsider.
gobeProductive 3 was (and is?) not a Microsoft Office clone. If anything, it’s more of an AppleWorks relative–not a clone, justa relative. The interface was its own and it did some very impressive things. I bought both Productive 2 for BeOS and Productive 3 for Windows, and I’ve been disappointed that I wasn’t able to find something like it for the Mac–despite the ancestral connections, AppleWorks 6 is profoundly annoying in a way GP isn’t. I’d welcome a revival of it. And despite what Mr. Ugh up there says, I recall having better luck getting GP to open Microsoft Word and Excel documents than any of the open source office packages (and even some other closed source) ones that I tried. (My biggest complaint with import/export was that their RTF translator was absolutely terrible–given that it could have shared a lot of code with the much more functional Word translator, and that the format of RTF is well-documented, this was not only frustrating but deeply ironic.)
People who want to keep using OpenOffice are welcome to, but I think a reasonably-priced closed source competitor could do well–presuming they pick their markets and battles better. I understand why they did the port to Windows, but my honest impression is that they avoided the Mac platform chiefly out of bad feelings from their Claris/Apple days. Yes, the Windows market is orders of magnitude bigger. But sometimes it’s better to try to be a big fish in a small pond than to be a minnow in the ocean.
Having said that, one final observation. Gobe “as we know it” isn’t back, I don’t think: I have a strong suspicion that the only person left from their previous incarnation is Bruce Hammond. They’re now listed as having been founded in 2002 and cofounded by Kevin Gilbertson. Since several of the Gobe programmers went back to Apple (as previously reported by OSNews), I’m curious as to what direction they’re going to take. I wish them well. Without an OS X port–which would have been desperately welcomed when OS X was just getting off the ground, and from talk on Macintouch about people still desperately trying to find high-quality Cocoa word processors–the chances are I’m not going to be getting a copy of Productive 4, though. Time will tell.
I own Gobe for beos/windows an Applix ware for Linux/i386 and Linux alpha and word for windows.
I like Gobe but it’s not a word processor it’s more of an word editor. Applix (from 4 years ago) is more of an word processor. Why??
1.) Table of contents. Word does this right. Applixware will do it but it takes an specific style. Gobe no.
2.) Numbered items for hedings. secition 1.0 etc. Word yes
other 2 no.
3.) Numbered equations. math word(NOT microsoft this is an maple based word processor.) and latex yes the other three no.
These may no seem major but they get used in almost all of my documents. I love gobe , I supported the company, but I have to have certain features. Note open office does not support # 2 correctly. I have an style document I can send to anybody who wants to see.
Sorry about the english today but brain is missing coffee.
Leslie D.
Gobe hopefully will, in the very least, finish the Gobe 3 code base for BeOS. Not a port really as Gobe is Be API as it is.
Or, they can get in touch with me, or one of the guys over here at yellowTAB and let us work up an agreement to finish the product. We would certainly be very much interested in assisting them (or doing the entire job ourselves if need be) in this.
Anyway, that is my 7,629,927,689,017 grands of sand.
–The loon
As far as classic word processors are concerned, GP is an average contender in the market place. It really shines as a DTP application and a presentation tool, since you can manipulate a synergy of images, text and tables/spreadsheets far better in GP than anything else I’ve seen. GP’s real strenght is in the way it integrates all these seperate tools – spreadsheet, word processor and image/graphic manipulation tool. So yes, compared to MS Office, it sucks at pure word processing, but MS Office sucks at creating posters, banners and CD jewel labels.
> I highly doubt there is anything in 3.0 that OpenOffice cannot do
The vector/imaging part of GP3 is _much_ more advanced than OOo’s.
Regarding word processing itself, OOo has much better compatibility to MS World
april fools has come and gone and [snip]
Ha! The real April-fools joke would’ve been that’s it was coming out for Syllable.
I am NOT speaking for Gobe Software, but if you haven’t kept up on the tech news lately, then you may be please to know that the next release of BeOS (R6) will be released soon by YellowTab (www.yellowtab.com) under the name of Zeta.
Maybe it’s just too late in the evening, or maybe it’s the vanilla extract talking, but why does this sentence make me laugh out loud?
Note that the Order page over at Gobe only lists the MS Windows version. Further, there’s a note at the bottom that explicitly says:
Note to BeOS customers
We no longer carry BeOS products.
In these harsh economic days, sometimes people are forced to stay in business even if the return isn’t as great as it could be, there is nowhere else to go. I know lots of EEs & CSs getting paid months & months in arrears, and hiring just sucks. Today some businesses literally run on good will.
If Be or Gobe had died during the height of the bubble (did anybody fail during that time), they would have liquidated on much better terms and gone on to do something else just in time. I suspect the Gobe people behind this had no other options at this time.
Hoping for BeOS/Linux versions too
My guess only
Ohhhh mmmyy gooodddd….. there back!
Thank god.
BeOS is dead… Get a grip.
The definition of dead would be not alive, but BeOS is alive and kicking so stop the crappy talk puh lease.
R6 coming up, and B.E OS releasing in 7 days….
However, Linux is dying…
Sounds like the Amiga community (of which I was a hardened member at one time) with their endless belief in the come back of their system (they’re still at it). BEOS will probably not come back in any substantial form either. Get over it.
Depends really. What do you mean by coming back? if you mean come back and conquer the world, no that won’t probably happend. But if you mean come back in a new version that begeeks can enjoy for a few more years then you are wrong. BeOS will come back in one form or the other. We allready have the hardware and we have several projects with similar goals. A few of them has to reach their goal sooner or later even if it may be too late to conquer the world.
And btw, if you didn’t notice, the amiga IS back
Don’t you just love these rabid “anti-BeOS” posters? Phiiitttt!!!
I’d love to see a campaign to request a newer BeOS version of Productive 3.0. If Gobe won’t do it, then we’ll get a Be version of OpenOffice.
JJ, your scenario sounds very possible. I remember they had formed FreeRadicalSoftware to try and make it open source. I guess (obviously) that didn’t work out.
It’s a shame how difficult it is for a high quality software office suite like GoBe to stay afloat. Hmm, maybe they too could get into Wal-Mart. It’s so funny, in a way – if Wal-Mart became this computing powerhouse, beholden to no one, Microsoft shaking in its boots, fearing the wrath of Wal-Mart managers 🙂
“”””Very little free software is a threat to commerical software. No free office suite out there can touch GP3.”
so what, from an ordinary users perspective, make gobe stand apart from openoffice (in writing letters etc.), means why should i pay for it instead of using oo which is free-i’m really curious…?”””
I have used both, openoffice was a clunky turd for lack of anything better to say. Also average people use things like MS office for more then you think. Even if GP3 was missing a feature, which it was, what it had was very nice. The whole package worked very well. Also get over the free thing. Not to many people care if it’s free or not. People will buy the commerical product that does what they want and has recongition behind it. Being free doesn’t matter to most people if it’s not something they and all their freinds use and can walk into best buy and get.
“””Very little free software is a threat to commerical software. No free office suite out there can touch GP3.
>>>>>>>>
This one’s pretty funny.
Is this why Apache is displacing IIS in the webserver industry?
Is this why Linux is threatening NT in multiple markets?
This why GCC has been a better compiler than Visual C++ for years?
Or why even my high-school mathbook was typeset using LaTeX?
Or why PostgreSQL and MySQL are making inroads in the low-end DB market?
Or why some of the best XML and Java tools out there come out of the Apache project?
Or why open-source scripting languages like Perl and Python are so popular? “””
You basicly said what i did, there is very little free software that’s a threat. I didn’t say no free software was a threat. Even at that these options will never fully displace non-free software, both will be around. I also don’t agree with all you say. I don’t think you mathbook matter much in this argument. For as much as perl is liked it is also despised a great deal. And linux will only get so far into taking over NT.
At the end of the day many people will be using free software. But at the same time many or more won’t be, free simple doesn’t matter to most. Some times they may stay with no free for bad reasons but they will still use it. Telling your boss your switching to something that is free over something the company paid big money for doesn’t go over well with management.
First, for the long haul, you might consider using abisource.com rather than abiword.org
Second, the GTK+2.x port is nearly completed, hence the 1.1.x developers’ builds.
Third, the BeOS developer declared Be dead a year or two ago and currently works on QNX
Finally, Abi-news may be found at:
http://www.abisource.com/news
oh, and GoBe’s new suite will not be GPL :o(
I have a bunch of very simple .doc files which I throw at it. Not only is the presentation of the content less than pathetic, abiword regularly borks.
and it didn’t get any better in the last 2 years as I was following it.
I love my Gobe 3! It’s quicker than office, and more useable than OpenOffice.org. It does need some work though!
It needs to be better, not necessarily bigger! It’s missing things to be a true office contender.
I’d like to see more standards compliance. Lots of different filters for other open source stuff i.e Abiword, openoffice.org, Kstuff, Appleworks, think office [someone needs to unite the Alt OS office progs!]… They need to add an open-source scripting language & hooks for the program. i hated to see Gobe go without being extendable! It’s close to being a great Home-automation suite. It needs database access, web page design, and simple programming [easier than vb, maybe javascript, php, python]. Gobe has more interesting and accessable soloutions than just about anyone else [even MS] due to its integrated structure. They need to leverage it!
If they could bring a few more kids under their wing would be good too! A bundle package with Opera, Eudora, and maybe Blender and Moho would be sweet! A loose alliance with hooks into each other’s programs would be neat rather than the current all-or-nothing everyone-for-himself approach. The little guys need to band together and play together instead of letting the big bully win all the time. The real battles are small ones and people like to be different-not all the same! Most people don’t know their options, they need to be actively shown!
> Yes, this is what my article says. That the abiword team
> prepares the gtk2 version as we speak, not that they are
> preparing to start it. You misunderstood it.
No, I think you’ll find you said:
“AbiWord is preparing for their GTK+ 2.x port”
Grammatically that implies that they haven’t started. Saying something like,
“AbiWord is preparing for the release of their GTK+ 2.x port”
would seem to be more correct in this context. Maybe,
“AbiWord is nearing the release of their GTK+ 2.x port”
BTW.. I hightly doubt it is AbiWord that is writiong itself.. that really should be “The AbiWord team”.
Gobe is great on both BeOS and windows. I would like an equation editor but even creating equations externally and pasting them in as graphics seems less of a hassle than using Word or OpenOffice. Indexing and Bibliography would be nice and probably ok to implement at the simplest level.
More keyboard shortcuts and customisable shortcuts and menus would be a boon too.
” I have used both, openoffice was a clunky turd for lack of anything better to say. Also average people use things like MS office for more then you think. Even if GP3 was missing a feature, which it was, what it had was very nice. The whole package worked very well.”
i don’t doubt that gobe might be a nice officesuite, but i doubt that it’s advantages are so huge, important or really needed by 90% of the users who want to get away from ms office that they might pay for it instead of using the free oo.
on the other hand, gobe might do well from the 10% or so who will-we’ll see…
“Telling your boss your switching to something that is free over something the company paid big money for doesn’t go over well with management.”
at least in germany whole cities or companies are switching to linux/oo exactly because of the fact that it is free or at least much cheaper than ms. on the other hand, i doubt that many companies will switch to gobe because they can’t be sure that gobe will be still there in 2-3 years, contrary to oo that is here to stay.
again, if you like gobe and think it is the best tool for you, use it, but i doubt that there will be enough people thinking like you. i might be wrong, of course…
kind regards.
I have been using gobeProductive quite a lot lately, in a Systems Analysis and Design class, to create Data Flow and Entity-Relationship Diagrams. There is no way I could do this in MS Word.