Cyberdog
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Cyberdog | |
|---|---|
 Screenshot of various components of Cyberdog |
|
| Developed by | Apple Computer |
| OS | Mac OS |
| Genre | Internet suite |
| Website | http://www.cyberdog.org |
Cyberdog is an internet suite that was developed by Apple Computer for the Mac OS line of operating systems. It was introduced as a beta in February 1996 [1] and abandoned in March 1997 [2]. It worked with later versions of Mac OS 7 as well as the Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 operating systems.
Contents |
[edit] Overview
Cyberdog was an OpenDoc-based suite of internet applications, including email and news readers, a web browser and address book management components, as well as drag and drop FTP. OpenDoc allowed these components to be reused and embedded in other documents by the user. For instance, a "live" Cyberdog web page could be embedded in a presentation program, one of the common demonstrations of OpenDoc.
A serious problem with the OpenDoc project that Cyberdog depended on, was that it was part of a very acrimonious competition between OpenDoc consortium members and Microsoft. The members of the OpenDoc alliance were all trying to obtain traction in a market rapidly being dominated by Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. At the same time, Microsoft used the synergy between the OS and applications divisions of the company to make it effectively mandatory that developers adopt the competing Microsoft Object Linking and Embeding (OLE) technology. OpenDoc was forced to create an interoperability layer in order to allow developers to use it, and this added a great technical burden to the project.
[edit] Cancellation
OpenDoc had several hundred developers signed up, but the timing was poor. Apple Computer was rapidly losing money at the time. Before long, OpenDoc was scrapped, with Steve Jobs noting that they "put a bullet through [OpenDoc's] head", and most of the team was laid off in a big reduction in force in March 1997.[1] Other sources noted that Microsoft hired away three ClarisWorks developers who were responsible for OpenDoc integration into ClarisWorks.[2]
AppleShare IP Manager from versions 5.0 to 6.2 relied on OpenDoc, but AppleShare IP 6.3, the first Mac OS 9 compatible version (released in 1999), eliminated the reliance on OpenDoc.[3] Apple officially relinquished the last trademark on the name OpenDoc on June 11, 2005.
Unfortunately, OpenDoc had a large memory footprint. And since the OS/2 (Warp 4) versions of OpenDoc were behind schedule, Cyberdog only ran on Macintosh. Moreover, saved documents were not viewable from applications which did not support OpenDoc's Bento format. After Apple terminated Cyberdog along with the rest of OpenDoc, Cyberdog's web browser component grew outdated as web standards evolved.
Cyberdog was once positioned as a replacement for the earlier, discontinued, Apple Open Collaboration Environment.
[edit] See also
- Safari — Apple's current web browser
- Mail — Apple's current eMail client
- Finder (10.2+) — Apple later integrated FTP functionality into the Finder
- Address Book — Apple's system-level address book service
- Network Browser — An FTP client introduced in OS 9
- Claris Emailer — Apple's earlier eMail client
[edit] References
- ^ Dawn Kawamoto; Anthony Lazarus (March 14, 1997). Apple lays off thousands. CNET News.com. Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
- ^ Bob Hearn (2003). A Brief History of ClarisWorks : Oregon. Bob Hearn's website. Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
- ^ Apple (December 18, 2003). AppleShare IP 6.3 Does Not Require OpenDoc. Apple Support. Retrieved on 2007-04-24.
[edit] External links
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||
