Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!watdcsu!psych From: psych@watdcsu.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Help! Excel 1.00 vs. 1.05? (really MS v. everyone) Message-ID: <4188@watdcsu.waterloo.edu> Date: Fri, 4-Dec-87 09:55:04 EST Article-I.D.: watdcsu.4188 Posted: Fri Dec 4 09:55:04 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 22:42:08 EST References: <870049@hpcilzb.HP.COM> <1211@uhccux.UUCP> Reply-To: psych@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (R.Crispin - Psychology) Distribution: na Organization: Psychology Department Lines: 37 Christopher Chow wrote a long stinging article about Microsoft especially Excel and Word 3. Rob Jellinghaus replied with a rebutal. I do not wish to repeat everything but each made some valid points. I would like to add a few thoughts that I have had. I believe that Microsoft has become too complacent about its position in the market place. They have started to loose ground to almost anyone producing a comparable product. When I originally started to look for a word processor to support within our department, I got a copy of word 3.00. It had problems but was the most powerful WP at the time. I discussed with MS about getting a site license or some other deal. Their response was $395 per copy. Word is not worth $11,000 dollars to us so we decided not to get it. I believe that the price scared a lot of people from buying Word. I speculate that the major sales of Word are to people who got an upgrade from 1.05. In the retail and business market I don't think it did well. MS finally relented and I can now buy it for $175. But, its too late. I have seen Word Perfect in action. It appears to have considerably more power than Word including macros, is much easier to use, and I can get it for less than $175 under our site license. The kind of unrealistic attitude that MS has I believe will hurt it badly in the future. Rob Jellinghaus implied in his earlier reponse that Word 3.01 is bug free. This is completely unfounded. I have discovered many problems in Word 3.01. Every once in a while it starts printing very wierd on an imagewriter. The cure is to do Show Rulers, select the entire document, move the left margin in a few ticks and then move it back. The printing problem is fixed. Another odd ball problem is one day it wouldn't open documents by double clicking on them. I had to open Word and then Open the document. The solution was to quit word while holding the Command and Option keys. This rebuilt the desktop and it works again (this has happened to 2 or 3 other people as well). Richard Crispin Dept. of Psychology University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ont. Canada N2L 3G1 (519)885-1211 ext 2879