Groundbreaking ThinkFree

The new suite offers renting options to those unwilling to buy

What would you say about renting Word to write a report, or Excel to recalculate a spreadsheet and prepare some graphs? The idea comes from ThinkFree, a company based in Cupertino, California, that recently released the second version of its suite, ThinkFree Office 2.0.
The package is a server-based office productivity suite, featuring Microsoft Office compatible word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics programs. Written from the ground-up in Java, ThinkFree 2.0 provides ease-of-use and enhanced Internet collaboration functionality to further ThinkFree's strategy of making computing possible from any Internet-connected device with any operating system, anytime, anywhere. In effect ThinkFree Office 2.0 runs on any platform, including Windows, UNIX, Linux and Macintosh. The product suite is accessible and fully functional online and offline via both dial-up and broadband connections.
Thanks to its Java core, the package allows easy cross-platform portability, a setback for Microsoft in its attempt to make scorched earth around Sun.
ThinkFree Office includes the fundamental elements of an office suite worth its name: there's ThinkFree Write, an advanced word processing application integrating text and graphics and allowing the results to be exported in HTML for generation Web pages; ThinkFree Calc, a spreadsheet with 300 functions and 40 different kinds of graphs; and ThinkFree Show, a module for the creation of professionally looking presentations and slide shows.
The product suite is automatically installed and upgraded over the Web and features integrated, Internet-based file sharing and storage as well as end-to-end security. One shall not be forced to search for the latest software update, or to try and understand why one's PC keeps crashing since the latest Office upgrade spews classic error messages that a computer engineer has a hard time deciphering.
The idea opens the doors to a computer universe that many look forward to, although with mixed feelings. In the past five years the computing industry has undergone a dramatic shift in the nature of computing platforms due to the rise of the Internet and, most recently, the widespread adoption of wireless handheld computing devices.
The desktop computing model is giving way to server-based computing. With the pace of software innovation increasing continually, it is no longer practical for IT managers to update software on individual desktops.
Device platforms are proliferating exponentially. IT managers now need to consider applications' interaction with desktops, laptops, thin clients, handhelds, and even cellular phones. In this framework, ThinkFree Office is perfectly at ease, proposing a central model that can work, thanks to its Java nature, on any platform, thus becoming platform-independent.
ThinkFree's Internet-based delivery and user-based licensing enable users to run the applications on any machine at work, at home, or while traveling - without the need to pay for additional licenses.
The entire package is rather small (14.6 MB), and one only needs to pay $49 US to use the applications for a whole year. The last bonus is access to 20 MB of memory space on a remote disk, fancily called "Cyberdrive", offered by the company for an easier interchange of documents among different users.
Likely, in the near future software renting will become a significant reality, considering the need for software houses to rake in profits, no matter how or why. Renters become a sure and constant source of revenue for them, as opposed to people who buy once and keep forever. The model proposed by ThinkFree Office has undoubted advantages also for users who would not be compelled to dish out thousands of dollars to buy software and updates.


For additional information visit www.thinkfree.com

Publication Date: 2002-04-21
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1218