Corel Office for Java
Shows Quattro Pro 1996 Alpha spreadsheet running on OS/2 Warp 4 - Photo copyright: Christopher B. Wright
An office suite for the Java environment originally released in alpha form in early/mid 1996 as WordPerfect Suite in Java but it got such negative feedback due to the size and slowness of the application that caused all Network Computer vendors to reject the application suite en masse. The announcement and eventual release of the much more lightweight and nimble Lotus Kona caused Corel to rethink the applications, slim them down considerably and release it again in alpha form in late 1996 and beta form in early 1997, this time under the name "Corel Office for Java" and it was frequently referred to by the company as simply "Corel for Java".
Corel Office for Java had one interesting feature that never made it to WordPerfect Office for Windows or other similar office programs, compound documents, these were a much simpler implementation than what OpenDoc offered and reminiscent of some of the old Oberon ideas and worked quite well.
The product was discontinued in late 1997 and the company announced that it would introduce an integrated Java based suite called Alta that would replace it and be much more lightweight and easier to deploy, with 70% of the Corel Office for Java code being reused in the Alta product. The Alta never saw the light of day but in 2006 the company re-used the name for a "next generation graphics platform" that was actually never shipped either.
Version
- Corel Office for Java Beta 1 - March 1997 [coj.zip]
- Components
- WordPerfect - Word processor
- Quattro Pro - Spreadsheets
- CorelCHART - Chart graphics
- Corel Presentations - Business graphics
- InfoCentral - Personal Information Manager and E-Mail app. (Partly based on Sanga Pages)
- Corel Desktop
Publications
- Christopher B. Wright: First Looks: Corel Office for Java - A quick look at the Corel Office for Java Alpha - from OS/2 e-Zine Dec 1996
- Brad Morray: Corel Office puts Java to work - InfoWorld 1996-10-28, page 95
- Dana Cline: Corel Office for Java - Dr. Dobb's Journal (Oct 1997)
- Pardhu Vadlamudi: Office for Java adds groupware - InfoWorld Dec 23-30, 1996
Links
- Novell: Corel Office for Java Certified 100% Pure Java - May 1997