Comment by qingcharles
2 years ago
I demo'd a full browser office suite in 1998 called Office Wherever (o-w.com). It used Java applets to do a lot of the more tricky functions.
Shopped it around VCs. Got laughed out of all the meetings. "Companies storing their documents on the Internet?! You're out of your mind!"
Some things are just too ahead of their times.
Globe dot com was basically Facebook, but the critical mass wasn't there. Nor were the smartphones.
Im curious if the code would be available somewhere? I have to admit I'm curious how it worked!
Netscape had a feature called LiveConnect that allowed interaction between Java and JavaScript. See http://medialab.di.unipi.it/web/doc/JavaScriptGuide/livecon.... for some examples of how it worked. Even though AJAX wasn't available yet in 1998, I think you could have used LiveConnect to achieve the same thing. Java applets had the ability to make HTTP requests to the originating host (the host that served the applet to the browser).
Long lost! Unless Internet Archive has a copy of the site? Never checked! The main domain was officewherever.com.