MaximumPC 2004 06

T H I S M O N T H : Office Suites!

P

DAs were once nothing but electronic organizers,

but they ultimately grew into do-everything wire-

less devices, complete with web browsing, e-mail

support, and even modest cell phone capabilities. Cell

phones, meanwhile, started out as mere mobile tele-

phones, but are now meeting the most satile PDAs

halfway.

Ericsson brought the first such “smartphone” to the

U.S. in the form of the R380, which uses a customized

version of smartphone concept, Nextel loads Java-based

PDA apps into a Motorola phone. These apps are authored

in the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) programming lan-

guage, which offers handhelds compatibility with any

device that runs one of the

burgeoning varieties of Java. Let’s have a look at the two

competing phones to see which one packs the most fea-

tures into the smallest space.

—ROB PRATT

M I C R O S O F T O F F I C E P R O F E S S I O N A L E D I T I O N 2 0 0 3

Head 2 Head A showdown among natural PC competitors

Y

ou could be running a crusty 486 or a smoking 3GHz

Pentium. You may prefer Internet Explorer over

Mozilla, Nero over Easy CD Creator, or PaintShopPro

over Photoshop. But when it comes to so-called “produc-

tivity software,” the odds are overwhelming that you’re

using Microsoft Office.

But things change, especially when dollars are

involved. IT folks cringe at the rising cost of the

Microsoft Office suite, and many users feel ripped off

when they drop a huge wad of cash for applications

stuffed to the gills with features they’ll never use and

might not even want. As a result, more users are begin-

ning to utter the phrase that puts Bill Gates’ panties in a

twist every time he hears it—“open source software.”

Now that the shrink wrap has come off the new itera-

tions of Office and OpenOffice.org, we think it’s time to

see how each suite measures up against the other. Is

Office really worth the price of some low-end PCs? Will

you download the free OpenOffice.org suite only to find

you got what you paid for? Let’s have a look.

Features  Office’s adaptive formatting and Smart Tags

are evolving from aggressive annoyances into helpful,

advanced features that detect what you’re doing and offer

to perform handy tasks like create bulleted lists, or look

up driving directions when you type an address in a Word

document. Additionally, a host of slick new features have

made their debut, including support for handwritten input

on Tablet P# devices, advanced collaboration and sharing

capabilities, and one-click access to online reference

sources. In terms of features, Office is the steel body-

shop toolbox to OpenOffice.org’s lunch pail.

Winner: Microsoft Office

20 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2004

Packed with tons of features and useful apps,

and it’s easy to use.

HOBBIT

BOBBIT

Expensive, and a bit too feature-rich for basic use.

$500, http://www.microsoft.com

MAXIMUMPC VERDICT 9

—OMEED CHANDRA

Applications: The latest version of Office Professional

Edition drops the FrontPage web development application

from the mix, but adds Microsoft’s Publisher desktop

publishing program (which, along with Word , is capable

of outputting documents in HTML format). Office also

includes an e-mail and scheduling program ( Outlook ) and

Microsoft’s powerful Access database. OpenOffice.org’s

inclusion of a basic HTML editor and drawing app isn’t

enough to compensate for its lack of desktop publishing,

e-mail, and database tools, so Microsoft takes this

category in a landslide. Winner: Microsoft Office

Ease-of-use and interface: The 200 edition

of Office sports a somewhat revised interface

that looks good and is reasonably functional.

However, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by

the barrage of advanced features in Office

when you’re just trying to crank out a quick

letter to 'randma. In case you get lost,

you can fall back on the top-notch help

system, which automatically connects to the

Internet to update and expand its contents.

Applications launch fairly quickly, which

lowers our blood-pressure levels considerably.

Winner: Microsoft Office, but it’s close

Value: While Microsoft does offer a low-cost, stripped-

down version of Office via its Student  Teacher Edition,

which includes four essential apps— Word, Excel, Outlook,

and PowerPoint —it’s still pricey at $50. #orporate

users will love Office’s full suite of apps and network-

enabled collaboration, but most folks will have a hard

time justifying the $500 expenditure—especially when

OpenOffice.org is for free.

Winner: OpenOffice.org (duh)

Compatibility: The file formats used by the programs

in Office have changed slightly over the years, leading

to some minor but shameful compatibility issues when

reading files created in older versions of the software.

However, we didn’t experience any significant problems in

testing. All in all, Office was more compatible with other

file formats than OpenOffice.org —and the new 200

edition can read and write in XML too


Winner: Microsoft Office

Word’s ubiquity—much like the rest of the Office suite —is an undeniable

convenience in many ways, but is it worth the premium price? We think

it is.