ISSUE 430: THE HIGH-TECH OFFICE--Alan
Zisman
When it comes to office suite programs,
bigger sometimes isn't all that better - Jan 20 1998
Bigger is better, right? So how come we
always complain about big -- big government, big business, big
software?
But despite all our whining, when we actually get a
choice most of us seem to opt for big. Even when we complain about
bloated software requiring more and more hardware to give us features
we never asked for and never learn to use, we still buy it.
Pity.
Think of office suite software, for example.
It seems that if you want to be taken seriously as a
business, you need to standardize on an office suite (80 per cent of
the time on Microsoft Office). The software costs a few hundred
dollars per workstation and requires significant amounts of hardware to
run properly. And then you need to train yourself and your staff to use
it.
But more of us than probably want to admit could do
just fine with less. And while it might seem there's no alternative to
the big, bloated suites, there are a couple. For years now, Claris (Apple's
software division) and (gasp!) Microsoft have offered a pair of
similarly named and similarly functioning programs. Both offer
everything many of us may actually require in comparatively slim and
trim packages, both of which have been recently upgraded: Claris Works
Office version 5.0 and Microsoft Works version 4.5.
Traditionally, both products have been targeted for
the education and home markets, and thus have not been taken seriously
by business users. Yet both products can now import and export files in
the standard business software formats, and offer attractive feature
sets that could allow them to be used widely by real, functioning
businesspeople.
Both programs offer competent word processors (only
lacking the big guys' background spell checking), spreadsheets and
databases. There are fewer bells and whistles than in either Word or
Excel, but many of us won't find much missing. The databases are less
powerful, but make up for it by being easier to use than the pro-level
programs included in the big suites. Templates are included for many
basic types of documents, including r?sum?s, in-
voices and the like. Form letters and mailing labels are easy to
create.
With their many similarities, if you decide to try out
a Works program, how should you decide which one? For a Win95 user, the
decision may rest more on look-and-feel than capabilities. Not
surprisingly, the Microsoft product looks like its Microsoft Office
siblings, while even on a PC the Claris product looks more like a Mac
program. Mac users may want to look at the Claris program first. Claris
is aggressively updating both its Mac and Windows products and keeping
the versions on the two systems in synch. Microsoft, as with other
products, is a version behind in its Mac offering.
The Mac version of Claris Works claims it will work
even on many older computers -- a two-meg 68020 (like an old Mac LC),
for example, is still supported. On PCs, both companies are only
supporting Windows 95 (or presumably NT) with their latest version. The
many millions of Windows 3.1 users (who presumably could make the best
use of software that respects their often older, slower hardware) will
have to search out older version 3.0 of each program, if they can find
copies at all.
There's also a basic difference in approach between
the two products: with their scaled-down version of Microsoft Office,
Microsoft Works users need to save separate word processor,
spreadsheet, or database files; spreadsheet tables or charts can be
copied and pasted into a word processor document, but the different
functions are kept pretty discrete. Claris allows users to work this
way if they want, but it's also possible to integrate all functions
into a single document. Put a working spreadsheet in the middle of your
word processor? While this will seem odd to an emigrant from an office
suite, it makes a lot of sense. Claris also includes much more capable
Draw functions than Microsoft's version, and allows files to be saved
as Internet HTML.
Claris is advertising its product as an alternative to
the traditional suites: it has renamed the product "Claris Works
Office." Microsoft's marketing has been much more low-key. Its program
is sometimes hard to find, though it appears as part of the Home
Essentials package bundled with many new computers marketed for home
users (a package also including Microsoft Word, an odd duplication of
functions considering the Works word processor).
With each product selling for about $75 they're worth
a look if, instead of "bigger is better," you're ready to consider that
"less is more."*
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