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It was initially created by Apple Computer in 1992 after Microsoft approached Apple asking for input on a proposed OLE II project. Apple reviewed the crude prototype and document and returned a list of problems they saw with the design. Microsoft wasn't interested so Apple decided for competitive reasons that it should have an alternative and decided to create OpenDoc.
Initially it was code named "Exemplar", then "Jedi" and "Amber" before being released under the name OpenDoc. The development team realized in mid-1992 that an industry coalition was needed and created the Component Integration Laboratories with IBM and WordPerfect. but in 1996 it was adopted by the Object Management Group.
Kurt Piersol from Apple Computer was the most well known of the architects of OpenDoc, but Jed Harris (later president of CILabs ) was just as critical to the early designs. Mark Ericson from WordPerfect provided the vision for a port to Windows that included seamless interoperability between OpenDoc and OLE.OpenDoc was initially released to run under Mac OS System 7.5 to provide a document based, rather than application based, computing experience. Documents were made of modular parts, which could contain different types of content, such as pictures, spreadsheet information, text or even Quicktime multimedia elements.
The WAV word processor was a semi-successful OpenDoc word processor; the CyberDog web browser was created by Apple as an OpenDoc browser; the Nisus Writer software by Nisus incorporated OpenDoc.
From IBM involvement in Taligent, there was an implementation of OpenDoc in OS/2OS/2 is an operating system created by Microsoft and IBM and later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2", because it was intended as the preferred operating system for IBM's " Personal System/2 ( PS/2)" line of second-gene Warp 4.
OpenDoc had several hundred developers signed up, but the timing was poor. Apple was losing money, the Java programming languageJava is an object-oriented programming language developed primarily by James Gosling and colleagues at Sun Microsystems. The language, initially called Oak (named after the oak trees outside Gosling's office), was intended to replace C++, although the fea, JavaBeans and web-based applications were all being hyped as the next new way of building applications. Before long, it was scrapped, with Steve JobsSteven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is best known as the co-founder (with Steve Wozniak) and CEO of Apple Computer, and somewhat less so for his founding and leadership of Pixar. He is also regarded as a pioneer in computing for seeing the commercia noting that they "put a bullet through [OpenDoc's] head", and the entire team was laid off in a big reduction in force in March 1997.