Applixware Words
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Applixware Words is a proprietary word processor that has been available for different UNIX platforms since 1992, a Linux version was released in 1996. Part of the Applixware cross platform development IDE, Applixware Words is a full featured word processor with macros, forms, and RealTime financial data feed display capacity.
Applixware, now owned by VistaSource, is available for Linux, Sun Solaris, Microsoft Windows, AIX operating system and HP-UX.
Applixware for Linux A subset of Applixware modules for Linux was originally developed by Applix upon request from Red Hat, who sold the package for $500. This price was reduced to $200 in October of 1996, and, by 2000, during the dotcom bubble, the Applixware Words word processor was available for $50 in GTK toolkit versions (Applixware 5.0 and Anyware 2.2). These offers (and the GTK Toolkit) where subsequently abandoned when the dotcom bubble burst, and priority was given back to versions aimed at Vistasource's core customers in financial, defense and government markets.
While not the first graphical word processor for Linux (EZ Word, part of the Andrew User Interface System, has that honor), nor the first proprietary word processor for Linux (WordPerfect was first made available for Linux by Caldera in late 1995), Applixware Words was a good deal more user-friendly than EZ Word and a good deal more bug-free than early Linux releases of WordPerfect.
The Applixware Words module waned in popularity among Linux users when full-featured open-source word processors, such as OpenOffice.org and AbiWord, became available. However, comparison to free office suites is misleading, as word processing is only a subset of Applixware's possibilities.
Applixware version 6.0 was released on December 5, 2005.
