Bad news for those hoping DataViz would pump out DocsToGo, their mobile Office solution that was a staple on Palm OS devices, especially those interested in productivity apps. According to Kathleen McAneany of Dataviz:
We are continuing our efforts to work with Palm to clear the path for a full editing version of Documents To Go. However, given the current environment at Palm, as well as the necessary collaboration with the device manufacturer that is required to bring an app like ours to a platform like webOS, our Documents To Go editor product for webOS is essentially at a standstill.
As soon as we have any additional information, we will inform you immediately.
Thanks for your passion surrounding our solution.
Pressed for more details, Dataviz responded, “we can only work so hard without help from the manufacturer. Tough to write an robust office suite all in javascript.“If I recall, Dataviz was one of the companies that were listed when Palm first announced webOS at CES 09′. If DocsToGo is no longer an option, where do we go from here?
via PreCentral
Not surprised at all by this one
…except now they have access to native code with the PDK. So, they don’t *have* to “write an robust office suite all in javascript.”
Well, maybe OpenOffice can be whittled down to a useable mobile UI.
(Right? Oh, no? Crap.)
“…except now they have access to native code with the PDK.”
I asked Palm reps at CES if the PDK could be used to write regular apps. From my understanding, it’s used specifically for games. I’m not a developer, so perhaps one will weigh in here. Maybe they did get access to the PDK and it wasn’t an option?
Didn’t buy the Pre for games, bought to be productive. Been waiting for DocsToGo and Flash and nothing!
Sounds like Palm had one change to make it happen and they still couldn’t pull it off.
Looks like it is back to the BlackBerry or even worse – the Iphone.
Honestly I could do twice as much on my Treo Centro as I could do on the Pre.
Go here and tell the QuickOffice folks to get going:
http://quickoffice.ideascale.com/a/dtd/21866-5219
or go here and check out the open source project starting up:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/predocs/
@Christopher Meinck
The PDK conversion utility is almost exclusively for games, but the PDK itself just allows deeper code crunching which can benefit all kinds of apps.
I will be very dissapointed if Docs2Go will not come up, but I keep my hopes as DataViz standstill D”G on their front page
I have the hope a second big name in phone docs will come out of this. They will have a near monopoly on the Pre and if it’s written in the PDK (it allows C and C++ code generation, it’s just being most prominently used for it’s access to the OpenGL LE access) the doc app will be able to move on to other platforms like the iPhone OS and Android.
Have been a loyal user of Palm and DtoG for 10 years. Loved Palm Centro. Very disappointed that DtoG is not available and that syncing with Palmdesk is so difficult. Will probably turn in both new Pre that I just received through ATT.