ThinkFree Open Interfaces Provide Partners Free Editing of Office Documents
ThinkFree APIs Allow Partners Like Jive Software to Integrate Editing of Office Documents Into Their Document Management Platforms
WEB 2.0 EXPO, SAN FRANCISCO, April 17 // -- ThinkFree, Inc., developer of the first online office productivity suite, today announced the launch of ThinkFree APIs (open-Application Programming Interface), a free tool that allows Web services, Web sites and blogs to post or host office documents on their servers, where their end users can launch the file and make changes from any browser. Users have come to expect that their files and applications are available anytime, anywhere. With the launch of these new APIs, ThinkFree is extending this always-available office functionality to other service providers.
TJ Kang, CEO of ThinkFree, will be highlighting the Editor API at the Web 2.0 Expo on Tuesday, April 17, in room 2016 at 2:40 p.m.
Service providers and users no longer need Microsoft Office to edit and save office documents. The APIs access the core applications available in ThinkFree Online (www.thinkfree.com) -- ThinkFree Write for word processing, ThinkFree Calc for editing spreadsheets and ThinkFree Show for creating presentations .- at no cost.
ThinkFree also announced partnerships with NHN's NAVER portal, Sparc and Livestart. It also said that it is working with Jive Software and Amazon Web Services to develop new workspace tools that leverage each company's strengths to provide reliable business collaboration solutions.
"Many forms of office work are moving to the Web where information workers can more easily access documents and data, collaborate, and create new information," commented Amy Wohl, editor of Amy Wohl's Opinions and president of Wohl Associates. "To accelerate and facilitate this process, we need products like ThinkFree which allow other Web services which present or manage text content to easily integrate existing office files and Web-based office documents. We are already moving to exploit the Internet with Office 2.0 applications; the next step is knitting them together -- with other Web-based applications, via APIs and open standards -- into on-demand Web services."
Jive Software (www.jivesoftware.com) has integrated the new APIs into Clearspace, the first enterprise-class application that combines the latest content creation tools (wikis, blogs, forums, collaborative documents and chats) with intelligence (tagging, workflow, user rewards, RSS). This means Clearspace users can now view, edit and save Microsoft Office files inside Clearspace without ever launching those applications from the desktop or having to download those files, saving valuable time and providing unlimited points of access.
ThinkFree office productivity solutions are also being integrated into Livestart, a business portal located in the Netherlands. Livestart guides talents in starting up a business, supporting them with online tools like an appointment calendar, CRM application, accounting, Web site generator, corporate blog, and most recently the ability to author and edit office documents.
ThinkFree APIs leverage the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) from Amazon Web Services (aws.amazon.com) to ensure high availability for users. Amazon EC2 is a Web service that provides resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Businesses like ThinkFree use a simple Web service interface to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It allows users to have complete control over their computing resources and lets them run on Amazon's proven computing environment.
ThinkFree APIs can be used in a variety of ways, including:
o Updating forms -- Companies can post expense report spreadsheets that
employees can fill out and save back to the company's server
o Assigning homework -- Teachers can post homework assignments that
students can fill out online and save to the teacher's folder on the
school's server
o Team collaboration -- Individuals can distribute documents or
presentations to colleagues, receive instant feedback, and allow online
editing and saving into a centralized location
o Extending a community or Web service -- Anyone with a Web site or blog,
and anyone who is developing a Web service, can extend the features
available to their end users, allowing them to edit Microsoft Office-
formatted documents
NHN, the largest Korean Internet portal, signed a $3.2 million contract with ThinkFree to integrate office applications into NHN's NAVER portal site in November 2006. NAVER has now integrated ThinkFree into its e-mail client so that its 20 million users can use ThinkFree to easily open office documents e- mailed as attachments. As a result, NAVER users can simply click and view online -- no need to download any files or install expensive office software suites formerly needed to view these attachments.
Sparc (www.getsparc.com), a customizable Internet dashboard, has added ThinkFree to its long list of collaboration and productivity applications. With Voice over IP, instant messaging, time management tools, project management, social networking, and content creation and editing, the combination of ThinkFree and Sparc brings together all the tools needed for end-to-end office productivity.
"ThinkFree continues to actively develop tools for collaboration -- or works with companies who have developed their own brilliant solutions -- so that users around the globe can find new and powerful ways to use our suite in their daily lives," said TJ Kang, CEO and founder of ThinkFree.
ThinkFree Online is the only complete Internet-based office productivity suite to blend the best of the Internet's collaboration features with the most comprehensive Microsoft Office compatibility available. ThinkFree continues to lead the evolution of Web 2.0 online suite development by providing easy integration of ThinkFree's market-leading tools for online creation, collaboration and editing of Microsoft Office-format documents.
Additional resources:
Screenshots of ThinkFree APIs: http://tinyurl.com/3cf3kn
Viewer API demo: http://product.thinkfree.com/tfpress/demo.html
ThinkFree API presentation: http://blog.thinkfree.com/thinkfree-announces-new-apis
About Jive Software
Jive Software is an Inc. 500 company that develops award-winning collaboration software for improving business productivity through open collaboration among employees, partners and customers. Jive Software's products, which are open or developer-source, open-architecture and customizable for any business need, power both online real-time and team collaboration for more than 1,600 customers around the world. For more information, visit www.jivesoftware.com or its open-source community at www.igniterealtime.org .
About NHN
NHN Corporation is Korea's largest internet company operating search portal Naver www.naver.com and game portal Hangame www.hangame.com. With the two business pillars of search and game services, NHN has rolled out a wide range of innovative and convenient online services. A number of surveys represent that the company is bound to become an undisputed leader in the online services industry in Asia and will enable people to enjoy digital life.
About ThinkFree
ThinkFree, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, Calif., is a leading developer of platform-independent office productivity solutions. Majority owned by Haansoft Inc., a publicly held company on the Korean KOSDAQ stock market, ThinkFree's mission is to offer market-leading software solutions that leverage the power of the Internet and provide users with a consistent, unified and productive experience regardless of computing platform. For more information, please contact ThinkFree at +1 (408) 432-5074, or go to www.thinkfree.com .
NOTE: ThinkFree and ThinkFree Online are registered trademarks. All other trademarks and/or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
Source: ThinkFree, Inc.
CONTACT: Jonathan Crow of ThinkFree, Inc., +1-408-432-5068, jcrow@thinkfree.com
Web site: www.thinkfree.com/
