According to a report at Zetajournal, YellowTab may be illegally distributing Gobe Productive 2.0 office suite. Though there is no official statement by either company at this point, some YellowTab customers have been contacted via e-mail by Gobe Productive CEO Kevin Gilbertson. In these e-mails Gilbertson supposedly demands payment from existing and future Zeta owners to use the bundled version of Gobe Productive. Both YellowTab and Gobe Software are expected to make a public statement as soon as possible. Update: In YellowTabs Defense, read on.
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Right. So by now you’ve all heard the news about Gobe not opensourcing productive due to horrible business issues which are somewhat annoying. Well, it seems that BeUnited is stepping up to the plate and doing what most said can’t be done: starting a donation fund. So if you have a few dollars (or a few hundred thousand) why not head over there and work with them and gobe to open source the best office suite ever. Maybe YellowTab could cough up some licensing cash. Or maybe BeUnited could strike a deal to get the code escrowed until they sell x number of copies. Who knows… but help them if you can. Its worth it.

Gobe Productive, the famous BeOS (and now Windows/Linux) office suite, is no more. It has been bought by Free Radicals LLC. The good news is that their business plan requires that the entire package be GPL’ed. The even better news is that IIRC, Productive 3 for windows and linux was actually coded to mostly BeAPI and compiled with wrappers to the various platforms. Which means prodctive 3 on BeOS is a VERY real possibility. Read all about it at osnews.

I want to thank Tom and Bruce and all the other great people from Gobe who have worked with us over the years (even after the shift to windows.) It’s a shame to see Gobe, well, go. But it’s great to see such a great product live on.

Gobe Software, makers of the Productive office suite, are offering a significant discount on the next release of the suite to users of the BeOS version of productive. The new version is not 3.0, but rather a relaunch on Windows and Linux, and the license authorizes you to use the software anywhere in your family, on whatever platforms you like. Normally this would sell for 129.99, but BeOS users can get it for 39.99 if they preorder now. Read on for the official announcement. BTW - while we recieved this announcement and the opentracker announcement, we have copied these directly from BeForever, mainly for simplicity of access at this late date.
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Gobe announced today that they are releasing Productive for windows and linux. This shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone who has been following the community for a while, but now its official, and being pushed. The best part is the word that the ports are based on the Be API’s, but built on windows using custom gobe libraries. This means that BeOS versions should be up to date and consistent in the forseeable future. The downside is that I can’t seem to find a mention of BeOS in the press release. Even worse, their FAQ says the following when asked about the beos version:

There are a lot of changes occurring with BeOS, and we do not know where they may be leading. After we have completed the Windows and Linux versions we will evaluate whether it is appropriate to complete the BeOS version.

At begroovy, we agree that the future of BeOS is shaky at best… But there are a group of us making a serious effort to save it, and if we are successful, it will be back stronger than ever. We like to think that Gobe will be there with bells on.

Ok. Everyone buckle in. This could get interesting. Dave Johnson, former Director of Sales and BeOS Product Manager at Be, Inc., has now joined Gobe as the new Vice President of marketing. Yes.. you read that right. So now the man at Be who was supposed to lead BeOS to glory, but was laid off instead, is now working at Gobe, a company that still seems to want to lead BeOS to glory. Hmmm. It could be something as simple as hiring the man because he is good at his job, and Gobe had an opening. Alternatively…. well.. I will leave the speculation to all of you. Read on for the full press release. UPDATE: - I just want to clarify that Dave was not laid off in the most recent round. He was laid off in April. What Be has been doing w/ BeOS since then remains a mystery. Either way, congratulations to Dave on the new job, and congratulations to gobe for getting a new vp.
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Just to catch up on some news before another week begins… BeNews noticed that Gobe has posted a screenshot of Productive 3.0 running under windows. Tom Hoke later posted his own screenshot of Productive 3.0 running under BeOS, apparently on PowerPC. Tom previously stated in our forums that Productive for Windows is based on a recreation of the BeOS API’s. We have to wonder how hard it would be for Gobe to allow most, if not all, BeOS apps to build on windows, if Productive already does using Be api’s. In either case, Tom sat down with us for an interview about 3.0 last november. You can read it to find out about what will be happening in 3.0.

Gobe’s Tom Hoke recently posted to the BeGroovy forums that they are seeking input from Productive users on User Interface issues. If you have strong feelings about how the user interface feels, how it should feel, or what shouldn’t change, better speak up. They’d like to hear comments not only about Gobe’s UI, but other office suites that you have strong feelings about the interface. NOTE: They aren’t looking for requested features - only User Interface (UI) comments. You can speak your feelings on our forums here.

The Register recently ran a “MS Calls Linux a Cancer” article, which obviously caused some replies. The Register has posted the replies as a new article. The third response is what is interesting, as refers to a BeOS related company in Portland Oregon, producing software for Windows. Read on.
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In what can only be described as a fit of generous free advertising, I am compelled to point out that Gobe Software is having a sale and offering Productive for $49.95 ($30 off!) or Productive and BeOS R5 Pro bundled for $54.95 (way too cheap… buy now before they come to their senses.) If you haven’t taken the step from PE to the Professional Edition, now is the time to do it….

Apparently Gobe is now hiring. They want people experienced in cross-platform development, which gives weight to the cross-platform rumors surrounding them. That said, the first platform they list is BeOS, so that is helpful. Anyway, it’s a good sign for Gobe that they are in a situation suitable to hire more engineers. Way to go guys!

Gobe has just announced several incentives to head over to their store and buy everything they have. The first incentive is a $15 rebate for anyone who purchases Gobe Productive 2 between now and December 31st. Read on for more details and contest info…
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To celebrate BeGroovy’s relaunch, Tom Hoke of Gobe fame agreed to sit down with us for a detailed interview about the next release of Gobe Productive, and Gobe in general. He will be reading your comments and answering any further questions, so now’s the time to break out all those questions you are sure he can’t or won’t answer, just to annoy him. Its fun. Try it.
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