Gobe Comes to Windows
Despite the relative failure, gobeProductive for BeOS -- an all-in-one productivity suite once bundled with Be's now defunct operating system -- has marched on. Currently in beta, a port of Gobe's popular solution has been announced for Windows bringing about yet another alternative to Microsoft Office. Much like the rumored Webdocs project within Microsoft, Gobe consolidates common tools and applications within a single document window.
gobeProductive's product team consists of several programmers who developed ClarisWorks, which is now known by the moniker AppleWorks. Existing BeOS customers can upgrade to the newly minted Windows version that marks the third release of the suite at a discounted price.
Like Sun's StarOffice, Gobe is compatible with Microsoft Word and Excel file formats. It support functions included in many other high end suites such as styles, live linked frames, sections, table creation and editing. Other features include: page layout with styles, live linked frames, sections, table creation and editing, output to Web and to PDF, and independent views of documents.
Gobe additionally supports multiple undos, full-featured spreadsheets with 3D charting and multiple sheets, graphics and illustration with vector graphics, multiple independent layers and transparency, image processing, photo manipulation with plug-in effects, and presentations with special-effect transitions. A complete list of features is available on the suite's Web page.
Dave Johnson, the company's Vice President of Marketing states that his company is in talks with various OEMs to broaden Gobe's exposure. Customers new to Gobe can purchase a full version for $124.95 USD and Be customers are allotted an upgrade for $39.95 USD. A special family license is also available to allow the software to be installed on each of a customer's home machines as well as one at the workplace.
Windows 98, 2000, ME and XP are supported at this time, although plans are in the works for a Linux distribution as well. According to Johnson the Linux release is expected in the first half of 2002 while customers in Europe are on the waiting list for both versions until late next year. The Windows release will be completed shortly. To download gobeProductive 3.0 Beta 1, visit FileForum.