No.
We do not have a license from IBM (who purchased Lotus Development Corporation) to resell or to otherwise incorporate Lotus SmartSuite in ArcaOS. In fact, IBM has discontinued support for SmartSuite on all platforms as of 2014. One of the primary goals of ArcaOS is to provide a supported solution for OS/2-based systems. Without developer support and without access to the code, we could not hope to achieve this goal.
SmartSuite for OS/2 Warp also lacks modern document import/export filters, such as those for recent (post-2000 or 2002) MS Office documents.
Our current recommendation is to consider Apache OpenOffice for OS/2, available through our technology partner, bww bitwiseworks, GmbH, which is easily installed in ArcaOS. Apache OpenOffice for OS/2 is current, supported, and capable of handling a wide array of modern document formats for importing and exporting, as well as direct creation of Adobe PDFs.
Of course, if you already have a license for Lotus SmartSuite for OS/2, there is no logistical reason why you could not simply install that under ArcaOS. You should check that your licensing for SmartSuite allows for such installation and use, however. In fact, all of your OS/2 and eComStation applications which run under Warp 4 and above should run just fine under ArcaOS (Blue Lion).
Unless otherwise noted in the product description, as long as you have a qualifying product and proof as required by the developer, upgrades may be purchased through Arca Noae, even if your original purchase was from another vendor.
Please see the Arca Noae store for pricing and edition details.
ArcaOS 5.0 shipped on May 15, 2017, with maintenance releases made available at varying intervals thereafter:
5.0.1 – July, 2017
5.0.2 – February, 2018
5.0.3 – August, 2018
5.0.4 – July, 2019
5.0.5 – June, 2020
5.0.6 – August, 2020
5.0.7 – December, 2021
5.0.8 – June, 2023
We anticipate a 5.1 release in 2023, with continuing 5.0.x releases for some time, as well as 5.1.x releases.
For prior release announcements, we recommend reviewing our archives.
Your information is completely confidential, per the terms of our Privacy Policy (the Policy). Per the terms outlined in the Policy, we collect certain information from you at the time of registration and at the time of purchase. In the case of a purchase, this information is used to process the transaction. For example, in order to process a credit card payment, we use the mailing address to verify the card number. Such verification reduces the incidence of fraud, thereby lowering our risk. This translates to lower per-transaction fees, which in turn means lower cost to you.
In the case of check, where we don’t need to verify the address to complete the transaction, this information is used as an alternate form of contact, in case something goes wrong with the email address provided.
We do not share any of your information with disinterested third parties, nor do we sell any of your information. In some instances, we provide name and email address to a third-party supplier in order to properly generate a permanent license key for you or to identify your order in case you need support in the future.
We will gladly accept your personal or business check for your purchase. Please select the check payment option at time of checkout, and mail your check in US funds to:
Arca Noae, LLC
7 Loudoun Street, SE, Suite 2B
Leesburg, VA 20175-3012
USA
Please include your order number on the memo line of the check.
Upon clearing, you should receive a notification via email that your order is complete. If you do not hear from us within ten days, please feel free to contact us.
In short, no.
We have nothing to do with Mensys, XEU, or IBM, for that matter. Our software subscription service is unique. In many ways these subscription and support services complement each other, however, so there should be little overlap of entitlements. A software subscription for eComStation does not include our unique content (drivers and software developed by us), nor is ours likely to include any of their content. Thus, the two subscriptions are completely different.
Warp 4 users will likely find much of our content useful. We do not limit the systems on which our drivers may be installed simply because of branding, but rather, only due to capability (minimum kernel requirements and other functional prerequisites).
eComStation users will find content here which they cannot get anywhere else, even with a fresh install of the latest beta version of the next eComStation release.
Yes! Your drivers will continue to work as long as the hardware on which they are installed (or the virtual machine in which they are installed) remains compatible with them. In other words, there is no operating time limit imposed on the drivers (or any other software included in your subscription).
Your subscription entitles you to one year of access to upgrades, maintenance, and support for your software. When your subscription expires, you will no longer have access to these benefits, but whatever you have already downloaded will continue to function.
Your subscription entitles you to a wide array of applications and drivers as they become available. Some of these applications and drivers may indeed be freely available elsewhere, but not packaged and delivered in the same manner as Arca Noae provides them. In many cases, a portion of your subscription actually pays for the repackaging of these components to ease the installation and maintenance burden which is so often the greatest obstacle to keeping a modern system up to date.
A full discussion of the differences between archives, installers, and package managers is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but briefly, these three concepts may be defined as:
- Archives: single-file bundles of files, with or without placement information stored in the package; essentially, just a collection of individual files.
- Installers: applications whose sole purpose is to facilitate the unpacking of some type of archive in an orderly fashion, and (usually) to remove it (uninstall).
- Package Manager: an intelligent installer, capable of maintaining a database of installed applications and dependencies, which handles packages containing detailed information as to where files should be placed and what other packages may be needed in order for the installed software to function. In addition, when uninstalling a package, a Package Manager checks to see if anything else which depends upon that package to be uninstalled may be broken in the process, and warns the user.
Thus, some of the software contained in the packages we offer as part of our subscription may be freely available in archival format from a variety of other sources, yet our package management interface is unique, and we provide this software in packages to be delivered and maintained by our Package Manager.