Editor’s Note: Guest Author Ajeet Pratap Maurya is a Software Engineer specializing in .NET technologies and iOS development.
At the recently concluded Lotusphere 2012 in Florida, IBM showcased there new product IBM Doc – a new product in the IBM SmartCloud for Social Business portfolio. IBM Docs is a new office productivity suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software that all work in the cloud. As of now, there is no client or desktop edition of IBM Docs; IBM however continues to offer a client/desktop office productivity suite called LotusLive Symphony. IBM Docs is now in beta and you can experience it or contribute through a community initiative called Lotus Greenhouse.
IBM Docs allows organizations, both inside and outside the firewall, to simultaneously collaborate on word processing, spreadsheet and presentation documents in the cloud to improve productivity. Authors will be able to store and share documents in IBM SmartCloud, co-edit documents in real time or assign users sections of the document so they can work privately easing the management of multiple revisions from multiple authors in team-based documents.
During the preview of IBM Docs, Jeanette Barlow, Product Manager, IBM said, “We are socially enabling the document process. We did not want to build just an editor. We wanted to create a solution that tackled the problems that arise when teams work together and collaborate on documents.”
By the end of this year IBM will have both a rich client and also a cloud based solution for office productivity. The latter will be a Web-based solution based on HTML 5, and will not require browser plug-ins. So it would definitely be a draw for enterprises that just need basic editing and do not want to incur huge costs on client licenses. Collaboration and social features would be the big draw! That’s in line with IBM’s theme at Lotusphere 2012 — “Business. Made Social.”
(Image Source: IBM logo)
