Taking on Microsoft

One of the sessions Monday featured a bunch of companies aiming to take on Microsoft applications in different forms. One of the more talked-about applications was from Evermore Software.

The Chinese company was the first-ever demonstrator from that country, and they came in with a bang by showing its Evermore Integrated Office product, which aims to take on the behemoth known as Office.

The Evermore Integrated product was impressive -- instead of having several different applications open at the same time (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.), the Integrated Office product opens only one application, with a button that lets users switch between word processing, spreadsheet or presentation use. Even more impressive is the integration -- change a figure or formula in a spreadsheet, and watch the change occur in the presentation or word processing application. The application is written in Java, and works on Windows and Linux systems. The company plans support for Macintosh OS X and Solaris systems soon. The software will be available for $99 (annual lease) or $249 (three-year lease), and will be available in May 2004.

Attendees at the show were optimistic about Evermore's chances, as well as the other companies attempting to take on Microsoft's application dominance. A Web survey at the Demo Web site said about 40% of respondents believed that Microsoft could be unseated from its dominant position in desktop software.