# GlobalView

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**GlobalView** (originally **ViewPoint**) was an integrated “desktop environment” including word-processing, desktop-publishing, and simple calculation (spreadsheet) and database functionality.[1] It was developed at [Xerox PARC](/source/Xerox_PARC) as a way to run the software originally developed for their [Xerox Alto](/source/Xerox_Alto), [Xerox Star](/source/Xerox_Star) and [Xerox Daybreak](/source/Xerox_Daybreak) 6085 specialized workstations on [Sun Microsystems](/source/Sun_Microsystems) workstations and [IBM PC](/source/IBM_PC)-based platforms.

## Overview

Initially, GlobalView required an additional processor on a PC [expansion card](/source/Expansion_card); it was late run using [emulation](/source/Emulator). Though the software it was based on had once been far ahead of its time (in terms of its integration and use of a [graphical user interface](/source/Graphical_user_interface)), the high cost of the processor and later low speed of the emulator doomed it to poor sales (almost exclusively old customers of the Alto and Star, recognized as precursors of the [Apple Macintosh](/source/Apple_Macintosh) but in themselves expensive corporate niche machines). The resulting lack of resources for development left it to fall further and further behind its competitors. It existed from the late 1980s until the early 1990s.

## Reception

In 1988, Stewart Alsop II cited "two significant problems with ViewPoint". He said that the lack of freedom for third-party software "to develop a separate identity" meant that they would be "invisible" like [expansion cards](/source/Expansion_card). Alsop believed that ViewPoint had changed little from the original Xerox PARC technology created more than ten years earlier, because (unlike Apple and Microsoft's "hundreds of thousands of users") not enough consumers had used it to give Xerox feedback. He advised the company to "be much less defensive and much more open minded; it needs to stop resting on its laurels."[2]

## References

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** ["Apple Insider - iPhone Patent Wars: Xerox PARC & the Apple, Inc. Macintosh: innovator, duplicator & litigator"](http://toastytech.com/guis/gv.html). [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20070707031909/http://toastytech.com/guis/gv.html) from the original on 2007-07-07. Retrieved 2007-05-27.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-alsop19880118_2-0)** Alsop, Stewart II (1988-01-18). ["Xerox Viewpoint: Stuck in History"](https://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/PC-Letter_19880118.pdf) (PDF). *P.C. Letter*. **4** (2): 8–9. [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20210308060223/http://vintagecomputer.net/cisc367/PC-Letter_19880118.pdf) (PDF) from the original on 2021-03-08. Retrieved 2017-11-23.

## External links

- [Xerox GlobalView 2.1 Screenshots](http://toastytech.com/guis/gv.html) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20070707031909/http://toastytech.com/guis/gv.html) 2007-07-07 at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine)

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [GlobalView](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalView) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GlobalView?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.