When Larry Ellison spoke at JavaONE this year, he mentioned the importance of Java, JavaFX and OpenOffice for Oracle’s strategy around the merger with Sun.
“We encourage the OpenOffice group to quickly build their version of a spread sheet or a word app using JavaFX.”
And as the Channel Register reports:
The CEO has also made it clear he expects the Sun-backed OpenOffice project – and potential challenger to Microsoft’s Office – to dump AJAX and switch to Sun’s JavaFX for its web interface. Ellison’s declaration means he’s backing an emerging and largely Sun-only technology, while the majority of the web and the industry uses AJAX.
In classic alpha-Ellison mode, Oracle’s CEO committed his company to JavaFX in software and on devices and PCs: “We are very committed to see JavaFX exploited throughout Oracle and through Sun.”
“I’ve been meeting with all the different products groups inside of Sun, and one of the things I’m looking forward to is seeing libraries come out of the OpenOffice group that are JavaFX based,” Ellison said.
But how long is it going to take the C++ based OpenOffice and integrate it with the completely Java based Oracle middleware including a JavaFX frontend for the web? It’s definitely not the work of a few weeks, and there is already a web based office solutions that is 100% Java based, with better Microsoft Office file format compatibility: Thinkfree!
Thinkfree – Java based office solution for Windows, Linux, OS X, Netbooks, Android and MIDs
Thinkfree is owned by Haansoft, one of the largest Korean software companies, offering products like Hangul (HWP, the leading Korean text processing software), Asianux Linux and of course Thinkfree Office. Haansoft has been building word processors for 20 years now (starting in 1989), and still delivers the best-selling desktop office solution in South Korea.
Thinkfree has been developed since 2001. Originally developed as a desktop app, since 2006 the company offered a web based version of the software through Java Applet and Java Webstart technology. Thinkfree offers a bundle of products for different OS, devices and even server installations:
- Standard OS – Windows, Linux and OS X Edition
- Netbook Edition, MID Edition
- Mobile – Android Edition
- Thinkfree Server for corporate networks
- Thinkfree Integrator – the server with APIs for integration with legacy systems
- Thinkfree Conversion Server
Thinkfree definitely would be a better candidate for migrating much web-integration layer to JavaFX. But the big question is: is JavaFX – in the current state – a good technology for achieving what Larry Ellison is asking for? Based on the feedback from the Java community, I’d say no. JavaFX currently is interesting for mobile apps, JavaFX TV and all the areas, where the speed and reliability of the JVM will add a lot of value to your software. Read Charles Ditzel’s blog post titled “What’s Wrong With JavaFX and What Needs Fixing ?” for a good description of what problems people seem to have with JavaFX.
Google on the other hand seems to very successful with the Google Apps Premier Edition offering. Large consulting companies like CapGemini already launched service offerings based on the product.
Google Apps Premier Edition & Cap Gemini
With the announcement of Google to move the Google Docs service offering out of beta, another strong competitor has entered the enterprise world of hosted office solutions. First signs that Google is ready to target enterprises with their office solution could be detected when Google signed a global partnership with CapGemini for the Google Apps Premier Edition – a service which CapGemini calls “Workplace Services”:
CapGemini is the first major professional services vendor to enter the Google Enterprise professional program and bring Google Apps Premier Edition to its mature and well-established desktop services practice, allowing clients to leverage years of its experience in incorporating new applications into existing IT infrastructures and ensure unrestricted movement between a Microsoft Office, Exchange/Outlook and Google Apps environments.
The partnership with CapGemini as early 2007 gave Google the credibility to say: you can migrate thousands of Windows PCs with Microsoft Office installed to netbooks or nettops running Linux and office within Firefox. Saving you considerable amounts of money through save license costs, low power consumption and heavily reduced IT management costs.
Web based office – Ajax or Java
If someone would have told me 6 years ago, that you can build a decent office solution running within the JavaScript engines of normal browsers, I wouldn’t have thought it’s possible. Google has built a very impressive application suite, that has been tested by thousands of people for almost 3 years now – and seems to be a very mature product.
Google Apps much more reflect the spirit of delivering light-weight office applications than large Java apps at a size of 50-100 MB. But there are still limitations to what you can do with JavaScript only. Just think of very large spreadsheets or office documents with hundreds of pages. I doubt that – even with the most modern browsers – memory management of the JavaScript engines can cope with such large amounts of data. But then applications like Google Apps are not built for that scenario, not for the power users of a Microsoft Office.
Java and JavaFX could be promising, if Oracle/Sun decide to come up with a Netbook/Mobile OS largely implemented in Java, and hopefully open source. Integrate that with a stripped down version of OpenOffice or Thinkfree Office and the Java appstore, and you would have a very interesting product. Google advantage is the integration of Google Apps with groupware functionality, Google Voice and Gmail. All these services have been used my millions of users, and based on what I’ve heard the integration is a lot easier than hiring a system integrator or Oracle to achieve the same. Google is far ahead of the competitors right now, and with Oracle and Sun it might still take a year until we see first versions of OpenOffice with a JavaFX UI.
And if you need proof of how hard Google attacks Microsoft in their key product market, take a look at the the just announced “Going Google” campaign. Here’s a video accompanying the “Going Google Campaign”:
