The Glide Operating System - Version 3.0
DONALD LEKA: TIMELINE OF "FIRSTS" (2005 - PRESENT)
Donald Leka’s professional career in technology can be characterized as a timeline of “firsts,” spanning pioneering cloud operating systems, online productivity suites, mobile operating systems, cross platform technology, large scale data systems, Artificial Intelligence, and AI Scenario Forecasting.
CNBC: Power Lunch, Bill Griffeth and Sue Herera
WSJ Personal Technology Column: Walt Mossberg, March 16, 2006
Cloud Operating System - Launched November 30, 2005
November 30, 2005: Launch of Glide OS Cloud Operating System: On November 30, 2005, Mr. Leka, leading the Glide Product Team, developed and launched the Glide OS Cloud Operating System, the first full-featured and fully integrated commercial online Operating System preceding Google (Google ChromeOS Launch on June 15, 2011; Google Drive Launch on April 24, 2012) and Microsoft (Microsoft Office 365 Launch on June 28, 2011).
Reception
InformationWeek: “Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce, meet Glide. Glide this week plans to release an integrated suite of consumer-media applications (Glide OS) that could radically alter the balance of power among Internet and software service providers. ... Because the apps were developed simultaneously, they work in concert with elegance that this writer hasn’t seen in other loosely linked software programs such as Apple Computer’s consumer media applications or Microsoft Office.” – InformationWeek, November 14, 2005.
Market Analyst: "Glide is a reminder to content producers that today's desktop environment cannot be taken for granted. Software services such as Glide represent a movement towards a more open desktop environment in which content producers will be struggling even harder than today to find a road map to the right combination of features and integration that will please content users. The time for presenting premium content as redistributable and repurposable objects consumable across a broad array of platforms and portal environments is upon us." - John Blossom, Senior Content Industry Analyst, November 2005.
Original Glide OS Beta (Glide Effortless), November 30, 2005
The New York Times: Glide is “full-blown online operating system” in the browser. "Glide’s core idea is unassailably fresh and useful.” David Pogue, December 1, 2005.
USA Today Review: “4.5 out of 5 stars Product Rating!” - December 1, 2005
Market Analyst: Gartner Analyst Allen Weiner observes that companies like TransMedia (Glide)…by promoting eco-systems where content can be sold, are building a legitimate market for digital assets much more quickly than many in the industry anticipated. "The rapid deployment of content and the developing of content -- the ability for people to download, to make it portable, to put it on players -- really I think has accelerated the development of monetization schemes," he says. - Gartner Analyst Allen Weiner, InformationWeek, December 1, 2005.
PC Magazine: Glide is a “paradigm shift,” that has “the look and feel of a new-age operating system,” and “there is little doubt that [Glide] is a unique application. Glide’s wonderfully dynamic interface puts it in a class of its own. It could be an app you live in and an alternative to the desktop.” Cade Metz, February 7, 2006.
CNBC/The Wall Street Journal: Glide is “a well designed and ambitious service … quietly delivering on Silicon Valley’s high-tech hype machine.” Walter S. Mossberg, Personal Technology Column, March 16, 2006.
Business 2.0: “While Microsoft and Google are still talking ... Glide has already built it.” – Erick Schonfeld, April 25, 2006.
ZDNet: “Glide is one of the first ‘Internet’ operating systems, a browser based working and computing environment. It demonstrates the first new competition for Apple and Microsoft since Digital Research’s GEM (a Mac like graphical user interface for the IBM PC).” – Jeffrey S. Young, March 16, 2006.
PC Magazine: “I don’t know anything else that does quite as much in so many different areas.” – Michael J. Miller, March 29, 2006.
BusinessWeek: “Glide provides the closest thing I’ve seen to a set of universal applications.” – Steve Wildstrom, Technology and You Column. - March 12, 2007.
Laptop Magazine: “This is the kind of remarkable technology that can weave itself into everyday use.” – Steve Smith, March 2006.
Market Analyst: Glide's popularity stems from its ability to allow users of all sorts of devices — from PCs to cell phones — to work on everything from Word files to slide shows without having to physically transfer the information from one device to another. Glide permits all of the information to be stored centrally and accessed via the Web. TransMedia also throws in its own set of applications for word processing, e-mail and other functions that can work on Windows PCs or Apple Macs without requiring users to download additional software. "Their technology is critical, since everyone agrees that eventually all software will be hosted on the Web," says Rob Enderle, Senior Technology Industry Analyst, Crain's New York Business, December 18, 2006.
BusinessWeek: “The Glide service has provided cloud-based file sharing for a wide variety of devices since before anyone talked about the cloud.” – Steve Wildstrom, July 3, 2007.
Wall Street Journal: “(Glide) is like world peace (between devices and platforms). It’s amazing.” – Walter Mossberg, AllThingsD D6 Conference, May 29, 2008.
Laptop Magazine: Glide takes the operating system off the PC entirely. Glide has achieved an in-browser experience that collects most basic apps and functions in an environment that’s completely Web based. The 2008 version has across-the-board compatibility with nearly all smart phone operating systems, as well as Mac, Windows and Linux and the included applications – word processor, conferencing, spreadsheet, presentation software, calendar, email and contacts – make a complete office suite. Laptop Magazine, “Top 50 Web Tools of 2008,” November, 2008.
PCWorld Magazine: “Glide OS 3.0 gives you remote access to your data – everything from media files like photographs and music to word processing and spreadsheet content – via a Web browser over a cell phone, smartphone, PDA, or other device. Glide applications are closely integrated with the company’s Engage app, so Glide users don’t have to move between various siloed apps to modify and share various types of files. Glide is both OS and device neutral. Its apps are compatible with a wide array of file formats, and you can create online meetings to collaborate in real time with any Glide OS user.” PCWorld, “100 Best Products of 2009," December, 2009.
The book, "The Cloud Computing Bible," had this to say about the Glide desktop and its applications: “The Glide desktop and its applications represent one of the strongest offerings of an integrated cloud computing suite available today. While Google Docs and Zoho Office both offer a large number of applications and utilities, what makes the Glide OS environment so appealing is that its large collection of tools are well integrated.” - Author Barrie Sosinsky.
All Thing D: Glide Mobile OS Demonstration, May 29, 2008
Cloud Mobile Operating System - Launched April 26, 2006
April 26, 2006, Launch of Glide Mobile Operating System: On April 26, 2006, Mr. Leka, leading the Glide Product Team, developed and launched the Glide Mobile Operating System (OS), the first cloud mobile operating system that worked across virtually all mobile devices. Glide Mobile preceded Apple’s Mobile OS X (Apple’s Mobile OS X (iPhone OS) was launched with the iPhone on June 29, 2007) and Google Android (Google Android 1.0 was launched on September 23, 2008).
Reception
InformationWeek: “Sun claims, ‘The network is the computer.’ For Glide, the computer is the phone. Glide Mobile’s transcoding technology makes cross-platform harmony possible. It converts file formats including Windows Media Video, MP3, QuickTime, and the like into streams calibrated for whatever bandwidth is appropriate for the destination device. The result is the ability to share a massive 40 GB video in the form of a tiny 5KB or less reference file that points to the sender’s Glide source file. Mobile phone users and PC users can view or listen to the source file at whatever bandwidth their devices can handle without having to provide storage for a large download. Downloading is an option if the sender grants the appropriate rights and there’s enough storage capacity on the device in question.” – April 26, 2006.
MacWorld: “A ‘portable desktop,’ Glide links your computer with an online repository, and you can assign individual users specific rights to view your content, upload new content, download what’s there and more. Remarkably, Glide also includes transcoding technology that takes out the guesswork from sharing files – you don’t need to worry if the people looking at your documents have the same applications installed. Right now the transcoding service supports hundreds of formats, and more are being added.” – May 1, 2006.
Business 2.0: “Glide Mobile basically turns your cell phone into a multimedia machine that can stream all of your online content (music, videos, even Word and PowerPoint docs) to your hand.” – April 25, 2006.
PC Magazine: “I’m even more impressed with Glide Mobile. You can browse and open files-including songs, photos, documents – even videos – with remarkable speed.” –September 5, 2006.
CNET: “Thanks to its format-agnostic transcoding tech, Glide Mobile definitely fills a hole in the mobile world. ... And the ability to preview, download, and upload files, and even send as much as 40GB of data (as links) in a tiny e-mail while on the go is powerful.” – April 26, 2006.
InformationWeek Review: “This powerful software-and-service combo gives you near perfect control over sending even very large media files from your cell phone ... Glide Mobile is an impressive mobile application, particularly because it enables you to send large digital files, while maintaining ownership, and with different sets of rights. You don’t have to worry about the computer, operating environment or file type because Glide manages all of that for you. What’s more, they have done a good job for the most part in the design of taking into account the fact that you are on a mobile device and want to accomplish an activity in the least number of keystrokes.” – June 6, 2006.
PC Magazine: “The whole package is wonderfully elegant. Glide Mobile even impresses when it comes to handheld video. And with a new desktop app called Glide Sync, you can automatically synchronize videos, photos, music, and other files across Glide, Glide Mobile, and your PC’s hard drive.” – September 5, 2006.
BusinessWeek: “Web-based applications such as Google and Zoho’s productivity applications … don’t work on the iPhone. The problem is solvable, since Glide has figured out a way to make its Glide Mobile suite of applications work on the iPhone. But Apple should come up with a general solution rather than forcing each Web service to find a work-around on its own.” – Steve Wildstrom, July 3, 2007.
PC Magazine: “Glide’s cloud computing solution is not only available but excels on Apple’s handset due to its specific 320-by-480-pixel screen support - not to mention its iPhone-like interface. Glide is a terrific application that lets you edit MS Office documents on the road and even code in HTML.” – PC Magazine, Schooling Your Smartphone, May 2008, Vol. 27, p. 83.
Jupiter Media: "Transmedia is offering advanced Microsoft Word document support with automatic desktop synchronization and version control on the iPhone through its Glide OS 3.0 product" - July 14, 2008
Online Productivity Suite - 20 Applications Launched 2006 - 2007
2006-2007: Between 2006 and 2007, Mr. Leka, leading the Glide Product Team, developed and launched the full-featured and fully integrated Online Office Applications, Glide Write (Online Word Processor), Glide Presenter (Online Presentation Application), Glide Crunch (Online Spreadsheet), Online Advanced Photo Editor, Online Calendar, Online Rights-Based Email Client, and file Collaboration with Video Conferencing Applications preceding Microsoft Office 365 (Microsoft Office 365 launched in January 2013).
Reception
CIO Magazine: “Google garners most of the web app buzz ... But Google hasn’t dished up a true suite, yet. Glide goes further ... This is a Web operating system, plus a sturdy suite of office apps, plus a synchronization tool that lets you keep documents of your choosing – perhaps your entire ‘My Documents’ folder – updated and synchronized on your local PC and on storage space on the web.” – Laurianne McLaughlin, “Ditch Microsoft Office? An Intriguing New Alternative,” CIO Magazine, November 14, 2006.
InformationWeek: “Glide overall offers a great package with security that dwarfs offerings from Microsoft and other competitors.” – October 30, 2007.
BusinessWeek: “I don’t think any of Google’s applications are ready to mount a serious challenge to Microsoft Office ... I have been playing with a more comprehensive product Glide 2.0.” – Steve Wildstrom, March 12, 2007.
Business 2.0: “While Google just merged its Web docs and spreadsheets, Glide is much further along in developing a full-fledged Webtop that combines a Web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, calendar, contacts, bookmarks, e-mail, and photo editor. It also lets you upload and share all your digital music, photos, and video. Windows Live [closed in 2012] is not yet as fully featured a Webtop as Glide.” – October 13, 2006.
EContent Magazine: “Glide (versus Google Apps, Zoho Business, Thinkfree Premium) comes the closest to fulfilling Forrester Research’s Kyle McNabb’s vision of a tool that can help people organize their entire digital lives.” – Ron Miller, EContent Magazine, April 2008 Issue.
Market Analyst: Glide, (Google) Writely, and the rest of the rebels against the desktop have an ace in the hole: users' long-frustrated desire to access applications and data from any location. "What I think will happen here is, over time, the increased mobility [of workers] will drive greater demand for online applications," says Wilcox. "As mobility increases, there's greater demand for access to information anywhere, anytime, on anything. Right now, there are some serious limitations with the current software model meeting those demands." - Jupiter Research Senior Analyst Joe Wilcox, InformationWeek, June 23, 2006.
DR. DOBBS: “Glide Write is a sophisticated multimedia-savvy word processor that exports Word, HTML, PDF, and ZIP files. I suspect the Microsoft Office team is following these developments with great interest.” – David Em, July 17, 2006.
PCWorld Review: "Glide Outshines Google … Glide Presenter 2.0 has overtaken Google’s presentation software as our favorite web-based alternative to Microsoft’s PowerPoint. Glide Presenter has covered all the bases with a compelling Web-based offering that could emerge as a true replacement for Microsoft PowerPoint.” – December 2007 Issue.
TechCrunch: “Glide Crunch – Closing the Gap Between Online and Offline Spreadsheets: ‘Google’s Spreadsheet doesn’t even have a search function. ... [while] Glide Crunch supports advanced formulas, pivot tables … and, yes, you can search within the spreadsheet.’” – November 6, 2007.
CNET: “Glide is the Microsoft Office of Web apps. Microsoft could not do Glide today.” – Rafe Needleman, Editor-at-Large, May 29, 2008.
BusinessWeek: “The photo editor is both remarkably full-featured and fast.” – Steve Wildstrom, March 12, 2007.
The book, "Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online" had this to say about the Glide Business Suite: “Glide Write is part of the Glide Business suite of web-based applications. Glide Write itself is an elegant word processor that just happens to integrate seamlessly with other Glide applications, including email and chat. In addition, Glide documents can be viewed on a number of smartphones, including the iPhone.” - Author Michael Miller.
Market Analyst: Always-on connectivity, data and apps in the cloud, the browser taking on almost all the functions of the operating system, with just a cutdown OS to keep things ticking along - these are the hallmarks of the ubiquitous mobile internet vision. The obvious companies seeking to drive and dominate this trend are Google and Adobe. The former with Chrome OS and its faith that pure web technologies like HTML5 can create a rich experience comparable to that of a native platform; the latter turning its Flash system into a platform that performs the functions of the OS, browser and rich media environment. But we shouldn't forget a technology that came long before Chrome OS, and which is increasingly mobile in focus - Glide OS from TransMedia, now in its fourth release and moving beyond the web desktop. Version 4.0 of Glide OS is an ambitious step-up from the current release, and ticks all the modern web boxes - cross-device, cross-platform, browser agnostic, and focused on the latest development technologies, from HTML5 to cloud collaboration systems. It is also more advanced in targeting the mobile world than PC rivals like ajaxWindows. Like Adobe, Glide OS runs as a plug-in to any browser, and is available as a free download, providing collaboration, productivity and syncing apps … However, unlike Chrome OS, Glide OS users can keep data and apps locally too, while the Google system forces people to rely entirely on the cloud. - Senior Analyst Peter White, Rethink Technology Research
Glide OS Ad-Free Search - Seamless Private, Semi-Private Data Search & File Management System