From the Wired article
O'Reilly suggested that networking technologies like Rendezvous or iChat buddy lists should be built into all of Apple's software. If instant messaging were added to the Address Book function included with OS X, the result would be something like Friendster, the wildly popular dating/socializing network, O'Reilly said.
"The reason I'm excited about Apple is I think they are a real leader in this area, but they are not thinking hard enough how to complete the picture," he chided.
Yes, Apple has the parts but they just haven't put them together. Apple has underlying technology to find local and listed users, connect to other users, do security/authentication, centrally store data, stream media, as well as databases, presentation and office programs.
If they were pulled together, a user could find 3 or 4 users they wish to work with in the Address book, and from there do one of many things - such as open a chat (multiuser - text, audio, or video), invite to a meeting, transmit Keynote presentations, share a file area (via iDisk or direct?), allow word documents for collaborating, or invite remote access to Filemaker databases.
That would involve Rendezvous, iChat, iDisk, iCal, Appleworks, Keynote, file sharing, Filemaker, and iSync. Some of that is on Windows also, but not enough - I think a collaborative answer needs to be cross platform. All up an interesting article!
Originally posted by MorganX
Whoever wrote it is confused about the difference between a Network App and a Network enabled app. <snip>
It sounds like you are talking about Client-Server ("Network App") vs Peer-to-Peer ("Network Enabled app"). While O'Reilley talks about all apps being network aware - the examples in the article imply a client-to-"big server" type of functionality such as purchasing - which confuses the issue. I found O'Reilly's site and though he talks in client-server ways, he includes shared documents in that, as one machine must be 'serving' the document.
http://tim.oreilly.com/p2p/netaware.csp
