OfficeVision was an IBM proprietary office support application.

History

PROFS, DISOSS and Office/36

OfficeVision started as a product for the VM operating system named PROFS (for PRofessional OFfice System) and was initially made available in 1981. Before that it was just a PRPQ (Programming Request for Price Quotation), an IBM administrative term for non-standard software offerings with unique features, support and pricing. The first release of PROFS was developed by IBM in Poughkeepsie, NY, in conjunction with

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, from a prototype developed years earlier by Paul Gardner and others. Subsequent development took place in

Dallas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...

. The editor

XEDIT XEDIT is a visual editor for VM/CMS using block mode IBM 3270 terminals. (Line-mode terminals are also supported.) XEDIT is much more line-oriented than modern PC and Unix editors. For example, XEDIT supports automatic line numbers, and ma ...

was the basis of the word processing function in PROFS. PROFS itself had descended from OFS (Office System) developed also on the same laboratory and first installed in October 1974. This was a primitive solution for office automation created between 1970 and 1972, which was replacement for an in-house system. Compared to Poughkeepsie's original in-house system, the distinctive new features added by OFS were a centralised database virtual machine (''data base manager'' or ''DBM'') for shared permanent storage of documents, instead of storing all documents in user's personal virtual machines; and a centralised virtual machine (''mailman master machine'' or ''distribution virtual machine'') to manage mail transfer between individuals, instead of relying on direct communication between the personal virtual machines of individual users. By 1981, IBM's Poughkeepsie site had over 500 PROFS users. In 1983, IBM introduced release 2 of PROFS, along with auxiliary software to enable document interchange between PROFS, DISOSS,

Displaywriter The IBM 6580 Displaywriter System is a 16-bit microcomputer that was marketed and sold by IBM's Office Products Division primarily as a word processor. Announced in June 1980 and effectively withdrawn from marketing in July 1986, the system was ...

IBM 8100 The IBM 8100 Information System, announced Oct. 3, 1978, was at one time IBM’s principal distributed processing engine, providing local processing capability under two incompatible operating systems ( DPPX and DPCX) and was a follow-on to the ...

and IBM 5520 systems. PROFS and its

e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

component, known colloquially as PROFS Notes, featured prominently in the investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal.

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believed he had deleted his correspondence, but the system archived it anyway. Congress subsequently examined the e-mail archives. Two wholly different systems also shared the OfficeVision name: OfficeVision/MVS originated from IBM

DISOSS IBM Distributed Office Support System, or DISOSS is a centralized document distribution and filing application for IBM's mainframe computers running the MVS and VSE operating systems. DISOSS runs under both the CICS transaction processing system ...

, and OfficeVision/400 from IBM Office/36. IBM's European Networking Center (ENC) in Heidelberg, Germany, developed prototype extensions to OfficeVision/VM to support

Open Document Architecture The Open Document Architecture (ODA) and interchange format (informally referred to as just ODA) is a free and open international standard document file format maintained by the ITU-T to replace all proprietary document file formats. ODA is deta ...

(ODA), in particular a converter between ODA and

Document Content Architecture Document Content Architecture, or DCA for short, is a standard developed by IBM for text documents in the early 1980s. DCA was used on mainframe and IBM i systems, and formed the basis of DisplayWrite's file format. DCA was later extended as MO ...

(DCA) document formats.

OfficeVision Family

There were several versions of Office Vision. OfficeVision/VM ran on IBM's VM operating system and its user interface

CMS CMS may refer to: Computing * Call management system * CMS-2 (programming language), used by the United States Navy * Code Morphing Software, a technology used by Transmeta * Collection management system for a museum collection * Color manage ...

. OfficeVison/MVS (OV/MVS) ran on the IBM MVS Operating System on the

System/370 The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path ...

and

System/390 The IBM System/390 is a discontinued mainframe product family implementing the ESA/390, the fifth generation of the System/360 instruction set architecture. The first computers to use the ESA/390 were the Enterprise System/9000 (ES/9000 ...

IBM mainframe computers. OfficeVision/400 (OV/400) ran on the IBM

AS/400 The IBM AS/400 (Application System/400) is a family of midrange computers from IBM announced in June 1988 and released in August 1988. It was the successor to the System/36 and System/38 platforms, and ran the OS/400 operating system. Lower-co ...

midrange (mini) system. As said earlier, all this versions were derived from different systems sharing no common code, only shared a common name. In general an OfficeVision system (which ever the platform) provided

, shared calendars, and shared document storage and management, and it provided the ability to integrate word processing applications such as Displaywrite/370 and/or the Document Composition Facility (DCF/SCRIPT). IBM introduced the OfficeVision name in their May 1989 announcement, followed by several other key releases later.

OfficeVision/VM for Asian countries

OfficeVision/VM for the Far Eastern languages of Japanese, Korean and Chinese, had a different evolution. It originated from IBM Office and Document Control System (ODPS), a

DBCS A double-byte character set (DBCS) is a character encoding in which either all characters (including control characters) are encoded in two bytes, or merely every graphic character not representable by an accompanying single-byte character set ...

-enabled

porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

from PROFS, plus document edit, store and search functions, similar to Displaywrite/370. It was an integrated office system for the Asian languages, that ran on IBM's

mainframe computers A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise ...

under VM, offering such functions as

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a phy ...

, and document processing & storing. IBM ODPS was later renamed as IBM OfficeVision/VM and its MVS version (using DISOSS) was not offered. After IBM's buyout of

Lotus Development Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1- ...

in 1995, the ODPS users were recommended to migrate to

Lotus Notes HCL Notes (formerly IBM Notes and Lotus Notes; see Branding below) and HCL Domino (formerly IBM Domino and Lotus Domino) are the client and server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provide ...

. IBM ODPS was developed in IBM Tokyo Programming Center, located in

Kawasaki, Japan is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, one of the main cities of Greater Tokyo Area and Keihin Industrial Area. It is the second most populated city in Kanagawa Prefecture after Yokohama, and the eighth most populated city in Japan (including ...

, later absorbed into IBM Yamato Development Laboratory, in conjunction with IBM Dallas Programming Center in

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, U.S., where PROFS was developed, and other programming centers. It first became available in 1986 for

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, and then was translated into

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

by IBM Korea and into

Traditional Chinese A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays ...

by IBM Taiwan. It was not translated into

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions ...

for mainland China. IBM ODPS consisted of four software components: * The Office Support Program, or OFSP, was PROFS enabled to process the Double Byte Character Set of the Asian languages and added some more functions. It could handle email, address, scheduling, storing/search/distribution of documents, and switch to PROFS in English. * The Document Composition Program, or DCP, was a porting from Document Composition Facility, enabled for processing the Double Byte Character Sets with additional functions. It allowed preparation and printing of documents, with a

SCRIPT Script may refer to: Writing systems * Script, a distinctive writing system, based on a repertoire of specific elements or symbols, or that repertoire * Script (styles of handwriting) ** Script typeface, a typeface with characteristics of ha ...

-type editing method. * The Document Composition Program/Workstation allowed preparation of documents on

IBM 5550 IBM 5550 is a personal computer series that IBM marketed in Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China in the 1980s and 1990s, for business use customers. In Japan, it was introduced in 1983 and promoted as "" because it had three roles in one machine: a P ...

, PS/55 and other "workstations" (

personal computers A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

), that offered

IBM Kanji System The IBM Kanji System was announced in 1971 to support Japanese language processing on the IBM System/360 computers. It was later enhanced by the support of IBM System/34, IBM 5550 and DOS/V. General The IBM Kanji System became available in a series ...

functions. * The Facsimile Program offered sending/receiving of facsimile data.

OfficeVision/2

With the advent of the

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...

and the client–server paradigm changed the way organizations looked at office automation. In particular, office users wanted

graphical user interfaces The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

. Thus e-mail applications with PC clients became more popular. IBM's initial answer was OfficeVision/2, which was released along side it's new generation of computers including PS/2, AS/400 and ES/390, which was a server-requestor system designed to be the strategic implementation of IBM's

Systems Application Architecture Systems Application Architecture (SAA), introduced in 1987, is a set of standards for computer software developed by IBM. The SAA initiative was started in 1987 under the leadership of Earl Wheeler, the "Father of SAA". The intent was to impleme ...

. The server, as said could run on the

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...

, VM, MVS (XA or ESA), or

OS/400 IBM i (the ''i'' standing for ''integrated'') is an operating system developed by IBM for IBM Power Systems. It was originally released in 1988 as OS/400, as the sole operating system of the IBM AS/400 line of systems. It was renamed to i5/OS ...

operating systems, while the requester required OS/2 Extended Edition running on

IBM PS/2 The Personal System/2 or PS/2 is IBM's second generation of personal computers. Released in 1987, it officially replaced the IBM PC, XT, AT, and PC Convertible in IBM's lineup. Many of the PS/2's innovations, such as the 16550 UART (serial p ...

personal computers, or DOS. IBM also developed OfficeVision/2 LAN for workgroups, which failed to find market acceptance and was withdrawn in 1992. IBM originally intended to deliver the

Workplace Shell The Workplace Shell (WPS) is an object-oriented desktop shell (also called desktop environment) produced by IBM's Boca Raton development lab for OS/2 2.0. It is based on Common User Access and made a radical shift away from the Program Manager ...

as part of the OfficeVision/2 LAN product, but in 1991 announced plans to release it as part of OS/2 2.0 instead:

IBM last week said some features originally scheduled to ship in OfficeVision/2 LAN will be bundled into the current release of the product, while others will be either integrated into OS/2 or delayed indefinitely... IBM's Workplace Shell, an enhanced graphical user interface, is being lifted from OfficeVision/2 LAN to be included in OS/2 2.0... The shell offers the capability to trigger processes by dragging and dropping icons on the desktop, such as dropping a file into an electronic wastebasket. Porting that feature to the operating system will let any application take advantage of the interface.

Migration to Lotus Notes

With the advent of

and Lotus cc:Mail as an OfficeVision/2 replacement, IBM began to resell it. Ultimately, IBM solved its OfficeVision problems through the

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Lotus Software Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1- ...

for its

product, one of the two most popular products for business e-mail and calendaring. Users of IBM OfficeVision included the

New York State Legislature The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an officia ...

and the

European Patent Office The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation

. IBM discontinued support of OfficeVision/VM as of October 6, 2003. IBM recommended that its OfficeVision/VM customers migrate to

and Lotus Domino environments, and IBM offered migration tools and services to assist. Guy Dehond, one of the beta-testers of the

, developed the first migration tool. However, OfficeVision/MVS remained available for sale until March 2014, and was still supported until May 2015, and thus for a time was another migration option for OfficeVision/VM users. OfficeVision/MVS runs on IBM's

z/OS z/OS is a 64-bit operating system for IBM z/Architecture mainframes, introduced by IBM in October 2000. It derives from and is the successor to OS/390, which in turn was preceded by a string of MVS versions.Starting with the earliest: * ...

operating system.