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What is SmartSquite ?
- Thread starter JohnBates
- Start date
MorrisDancer
MIS
Lotus Smartsuite is an alternative to MS Office.
It contains
123 - Spreadsheet
WordPro - WordProcessor
Freelance - Presentation Producer
Approach - Database
Organiser - Agenda/Contacts
as well as one or two other smaller packages. It doesn't contain Lotus Notes which is a separate software tool.
Smartsuite provides very similar functionalities to MS Office. There is very little that one can do that the other cannot. There does tend to be a lot of argument between users of the two camps but it tends to be over more trivial functions than major differences. Functionally I prefer SS, but that I think is because I've had a lot more exposure to it.
The main SS pro is that it generally is cheaper and it will open software from most of the other Companies (ie. I can open some of the latest Excel and Quatro Pro files in 123), something which Microsoft doesn't seem to do for whatever reason, be it arrogance or competitive marketing.
MS Office by comparison has a much larger user base and much more learning materials. Much of the computer press aimed at the mass market either ignores the existence of non-MS office packages or at least provides very few how-to articles in comparison of the coverage for MS-Word and Excel.
I would suggest if you were using the office package for basic to intermediate home use and you and weren't too worried by a puacity of How-To manuals then Lotus SS is the option to choose due to cost. If you wanted to send and receive lots of files in electronic format then you are probably best going with MS office - it's likely that 95% of your correspondents will be using it as well and while it is possible to save and open Office documnets in SS it's easier in the native application. The caveat on the final statement is if you are corresponding with only one or two big corporations they may have chosen Lotus SS for cost reasons (or in IBMs case becuase they own it).
One final word. Make sure you get either v9.0 (Millenium) or later. v97 is buggy as a termite mound. I believe the latest version is v9.6
It contains
123 - Spreadsheet
WordPro - WordProcessor
Freelance - Presentation Producer
Approach - Database
Organiser - Agenda/Contacts
as well as one or two other smaller packages. It doesn't contain Lotus Notes which is a separate software tool.
Smartsuite provides very similar functionalities to MS Office. There is very little that one can do that the other cannot. There does tend to be a lot of argument between users of the two camps but it tends to be over more trivial functions than major differences. Functionally I prefer SS, but that I think is because I've had a lot more exposure to it.
The main SS pro is that it generally is cheaper and it will open software from most of the other Companies (ie. I can open some of the latest Excel and Quatro Pro files in 123), something which Microsoft doesn't seem to do for whatever reason, be it arrogance or competitive marketing.
MS Office by comparison has a much larger user base and much more learning materials. Much of the computer press aimed at the mass market either ignores the existence of non-MS office packages or at least provides very few how-to articles in comparison of the coverage for MS-Word and Excel.
I would suggest if you were using the office package for basic to intermediate home use and you and weren't too worried by a puacity of How-To manuals then Lotus SS is the option to choose due to cost. If you wanted to send and receive lots of files in electronic format then you are probably best going with MS office - it's likely that 95% of your correspondents will be using it as well and while it is possible to save and open Office documnets in SS it's easier in the native application. The caveat on the final statement is if you are corresponding with only one or two big corporations they may have chosen Lotus SS for cost reasons (or in IBMs case becuase they own it).
One final word. Make sure you get either v9.0 (Millenium) or later. v97 is buggy as a termite mound. I believe the latest version is v9.6
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