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HP Drops Microsoft Word in Favor of WordPerfect
nexex points to this Financial Times article, which says that HP has dropped Microsoft Word from the software lineup in the personal computers it sells to customers. From the article: "The move follows a decision last week by Dell Computer, the number two PC maker, to replace Microsoft software. Both companies said they would offer WordPerfect productivity software from Corel of Canada instead of Microsoft's Works, a scaled-down version of its top-selling Office software." Nexex writes:"I think it should be noted, MS Works does include the full version of Word."
buy are overpriced non-OS software product... or buy the scaled down version and get the full version free.
HP, why not just go OpenOffice? Word Perfect has just as many bugs, and you'd save yourself (ultimately your consumers) a lot more money.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
I still use WP to this day, and have since v5 for DOS. Reveal codes is good!! it makes word processing closer to html editing in notepad. Total control over the document layout. I can not stand Word at all with its lack of this hugely important editing feature. Go HP!!!
Morphing Software
Word is the standard for word processing on windows. If HP doesn't ship it people will be forced to buy it. Wordperfect hasn't had widespread use since 1995, and I doubt people would want to switch back from the MS word standard. Buying a HP box would now be a bad choice for a student, as most schools including mine use word exclusively and students are expected to know how to use it. Bad move HP!
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
Before people go trashing on WordPerfect, let me point out some things you might not know about it:
And if you say it's not for you, you're right. It definitely fills an important niche that a lot of other apps can't or don't want to.
----- obSig
Ask any secretary that actually TYPES for a living, especially the ones that need to do complex text formatting (e.g., legal secretaries) -- the secretaries that type 90+wpm. They *all* agree, and I mean every single last one, that nothing can *touch* word perfect for speed of text input. The function keys, which have mapped to more or less the same functions since 1985 (...earlier?), allow experienced users to do many things in less than a second that would otherwise take quite a while to do with a mouse. WP was, and is still *keyboard* based -- that means that if you know what you are doing, you can do everything in WP, very quickly, without ever taking your hands off the keyboard. I can't imagine ever having to use that horrible MSword to do anything except under threat of starvation. Of course the very best thing about WP, that I have never seen any other WP do, is that the "control codes" option always lets you see exactly why a document is behaving the way it is on screen: each formatting option is just a simple code between text brackets in a text document. There's never any question of why something looks the way it does in WP. No matter what the function, whether it be bold, or column size, or printer type, or whatever, it is just a simple code between brackets. In contrast, MSWord users are constantly baffled by a program that is trying to "assist" the user, by doing things it wasn't asked to do (and of course, cannot be undone) -- which is generally chalked up as being "just the way the program is,;" or else the users just feel like they are stupid and don't know how to use the program properly.
MSWord exists today only because it was bundled by OEMs (originally as MSWorks, in crippled form... though the full version is still crippled...) It never could have caught on otherwise as no one that actually knew about word processors would have chosen it over WP if they actually had to pay for it.
Oh yea, what platforms does WP work on right now? At least these:
Amiga, every version ever made
Linux, every version ever made
Unix, every version ever made
Windows, every version ever made
Mac, every version ever made
I'm sure there are other versions -- the above ones are just the ones that I have personally used.
Do I know what I'm talking about? Well, I used to be a legal secretary before I started accumulating degrees. I have been tested out, several times, at 100+wpm. I was word processing on a Prime mainframe (using a text editor) before word processors (and PCs) existed.
When making a living depends on how fast you get a document out of the printer -- which word processor you use is extremely important.
The typing ability requirements for a legal secretary are far more stringent than any "normal" secretary. Glance in the want-ads in your local paper and you'll see what I mean. Legal secretaries are, on an almost daily basis, required to pump out GIGANTIC documents, always suddenly, always in a complete crisis situation, and always mere minutes before they must be faxed out. It is the rare law office that does not use WP, and the secretaries in the occasional law office that uses MSWord instead are extremely unhappy about it, bitch continuously, and quit constantly.
"Reveal codes is good!! it makes word processing closer to html editing in notepad."
I think comparing to DreamWeaver is more accurate for HTML editting.
Before anyone commenting on WordPerfect vis-a-vis OO/SO, s/he should spend a few hours working with experts with both suites. WordPerfect is so far superior, it is funny to even talk about OO in the same sentence. BTW, the version of WordPerfect being bundled, version 10, is actually the weakest of the three 32-bit versions (but still far better than Microsoft Word in producing "conventional" documents). Wait until Corel puts its acts together and bring the quality of its next version to the level of WordPerfect 8. But even WordPerfect 10 is good enough for enterprise use. If you don't believe me, go to any store that sells SONY PCs and play with the program that has been pre-installed in the VAIOs. We should never expect Microsoft to produce an office suite for Linux, but Corel may (Corel's CEO recently and repeatedly stated that Corel will consider a native Linux port if there is a market). Recent moves by HP, SONY, and DELL from MS Office to WordPerfect actually send a much bigger message: they may pave the way for their eventual migration to Linux desktops. In other words, because the profit margins are so thin, by selling Windows machines, hardware companies are only helping Microsoft. Moving to Linux not only cuts down the price (which is indeed a very minor consideration), it also allows the hardware vendors to become software distributors, i.e., allowing them to retain some control over their customers. However, there is one critical piece missing in the Linux puzzle game, and that is an enterprise level wordprocessor. WordPerfect will fit this need perfectly. I understand OpenOffice 6.0.1, and more particularly KOffice (1.2 rc1), have made significant improvements. However, nothing can replace the user experience that must be accumulated over time. WordPerfect 8 was built based on years and years of usage and tens of millions of user experience. Corel management screwed up on WordPerfect 10, but the person in charge was recently fired. And with the recent service pack, WordPerfect 10 indeed is almost as powerful and reliable as version 8.
Yes, I'm sure if you know your way around the 15 function keys, and understand how to read the control codes then WP is lovely to use.
I don't... I find Word easy enough to use, they keep adding features that get around my problems (e.g. format painter), and after a while, you come to understand why it's doing what it's doing... you empathise. Well, some of the time anyway.
I guess my point is that Word is easy and friendly if you're NOT a 90wpm legal sec, but someone who does a different job but still needs to knock out the occasional half-decent document.
Oh, and you can undo anything that word helpfully (bless it) tries to do for you. Ctrl-Z undoes first word's attempts at helpfulness, and then whatever you last did.
Watch me disappear beneath the waves of ACs now for having actually stood up for microsoft...
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Try asking your mom/grandmother if they've heard of StarOffice or WordPerfect. That is your answer.
WordPerfect Office is freaking $5 to OEM's. That is close enough to free (hell they may be getting it for free, that wouldn't hurt Corel either since no one is buying it anyway).
It's all about maximizing revenue. Oh and BTW the Word in works is stripped down (less templates, clipart, etc) and there is no comparing excel, access, outlook and powerpoint (oh yeah and publisher) to MS works (oxymoron if i've ever seen one) tools. And since when does a company care about saving their customers money? they only care about saving themselves money.
Although certain aspects of the DOJ case against MS are important, for the most part I always asserted that the market would correct itself. Apple is gaining ground thanks to the fact that they are finally making a great OS, and now MS is losing to big OEM's on their office products. As long as the competition doesn't suck, MS will not be a monopoly.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Excel is the killer app and I've still NEVER seen a decent substitute for a complex multi-sheeted calculation rich spread sheet. I have OO, and Star Office loaded as well but neither does the job. As for a word pro I could use notepad, or heck even VI when you get right down to it. Props to them for exploring alternatives, WP suite 7.0 was quite nice but why make life harder and sacrifice that 'synergy' that Word and Excel have by replacing just one half the tool-set. Given my druthers I'd use OO and screw the Visio/Excel issues but work requires that I use such documents.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I'm wondering what Corel is charging OEM's for WordPerfect Office nowadays? Considering that they are hard up for customers at the moment, I'll bet that they gave HP a sweet deal in order to get some volume sales.
Hell, for all we know, Corel might be offering WordPerfect Office for LESS that Microsoft is charging for Works! Considering the the basic version of Works doesn't come with any of the full-featured addons like Word or Microsoft Money, this might be a good deal for both HP and consumers alike.
Eww. How about RTF? It's an MS standard, but it's a good one. I've never gone wrong with RTF moving between my NeXT, my Mac, and PCs. It supports enough formatting to be worth it, but not so many awful features that it's all crufty and hard to implement.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
Give me a break, WordPerfect is still more functional as a word processor. The interface is better and the placment for items in the menus and the toolbars are more functional.
_ _
You don't have to know any function keys or know how to read the reveal codes. Every tester in the software development labs I met prefer the interface of the WordPerfect app itself. Many still like Excel over Quatro Pro and would be lost without NT so they are not exactly anti-Redmond. They test lots of Office apps for creating documents in their testing.
I used WordPerfect8 in Linux and on Windows for awhile and liked it a lot. Try out a recent version and you may be surprised. If you have the chance, get a copy and use for a week when you have a few things to type up.
_______________________________________________
ACK
From the article:
Microsoft last financial year generated $9.6bn of its total $28bn of revenues from desktop software.
Anyone know the breakdown of where the other $18.4 billion came from? I can't even begin to hazard a guess, but I had thought, perhaps naively, that desktop software was a bigger percentage than that.
This also raises another problem for MS: at least with Word 2000 (the only Word I have access to), the import filters for Wordperfect files are old (latest is WP 6!) and horrid, while the Wordperfect import filters for Word are recent and quite good. If this catches on, MS will be in deep kaka on the file-compatability scene. I suppose they could just throw more of their monke^H^H^H^H^Hprogrammers at the problem, but they'd have to at least wait until the next version to roll it out.
(Oh wait, what am I talking about? MS Office is part of the Operating System!)
When I finally "upgraded" the OS from Win95 to WinME (I know I know but I was told that it was basically Win98 3rd edition... anyhow) WordPerfect would not function.
Uninstall, reinstall.
Nothing.
One call to tech support later I had a solution given to me: Just pay $100 to upgrade to WordPerfect2000. This did not quite fit my budget at the time (and still doesn't) given the fact that the only added functionality I needed was the ability to work under the operating system I had bought to fix the Microsoft glitch of not recognizing AMD processors in Win95 that were faster than 300MHz.
Needless to say I have been glad to see StarOffice evolve and ecstatic to see OpenOffice mature. If I already bought your software, please don't make me suffer just because time has moved on...
It was fine software but I am not going back. They had their chance and blew it.
Hey!!! the parentheses are good for something
Dell and HP save money buy puting Corel on. But when was the last time someone other than a lawyer used Word Perfect, and Quattro oh yuck. So when they need to learn Word and Excel because they need to know them to get a job in the real world they will have to by MS Office.
Disraeli once said "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests." HP and Dell are nation size wrt revenue. I wonder what will happen when the MS Works bid comes in 5 cents less per copy, rather than 5 cents more.
Now what would be really nifty would be for them to start offering Lotus Smartsuite - still an excellent choice even if IBM doesn't seem to be very interested in marketing it. Were it not for file formats I'd take Lotus Word Pro over MS Word any day of the week.
Not exactly. As I remember it, it was around Windows 3.1's announcement when MS went to WordPerfect (and Lotus as well) BEGGING them to write for Windows, touting Windows' many supposed virtues as an environment.
Neither WP nor Lotus was moved. Perhaps they saw the Windows environment, with its centralized driver data, nullified their investment in having written DOS drivers for every screen, printer and video card (WP-5.1 had a VGA preview WYSIWYG option.) Perhaps they felt betrayed by MS and Intel setting standards for Expanded Memory and then arranging Windows to make use of the (LIM-4) standard very difficult, indeed, for most users who hadn't heard of QEMM memory management. And perhaps it was WP and Lotus' own hubris. For whatever reason, both WP and Lotus' Windows products were years late and the early versions were crash-happy under Windows to boot.
Anyway, MS virtually gave away VAR licenses for Word and, later, Office to get market share, apparently, and at WP and Lotus' expense.
But MS did not steal users from WP; WP gave them away.
For what it's worth, I STILL depend on WP5.1 for my writing. Good thing it runs fine under DOSEmu. Oh, and it was written in assembler!
Um... you reveal your lack of familiarity with WordPerfect. :)
WP now has a Word compatibility mode -- where everything looks and behaves just like Word. (I'd have to check whether that also defaults to saving in Word format, but you can always Save As regardless.) So no one has the excuse of being "confused" by a different interface. And WP installs common import/export filters (like for for Word) by default.
Conversely, StarOffice looks and behaves more like WordStar for DOS!! Talk about a confusing interface.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Modern word processors are bloated messes. "Creeping featurism" has run rampant. How many of your average users ever learn more than a very small percentage of their word processors features? How many of those features would never have been added if the word processor's company's business model wasn't built on selling their customers an upgrade to a "new, improved" model every couple of years?
More to the point HP has never distributed "Works Suite 2002" with PC's; it distributes "MS Works 6.0". Therefore it cannot be said that Word is being dropped, since it was __never__ bundled in the first place.
It should be noted that HP is giving away a 30-day trial version of Corel WordPerfect Office whilst also continuing to bundle away Ms Works 6.0 with is PCs.
hp pavilion 512n desktop PC
Hmm. With cries of `DOS ain't done 'til Lotus won't run' ringing in my imagination, it's not that hard to figure out what one of the reasons was. It's not as if DR-DOS was welcomed to Windows or anything.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
No, not at all, I'm a Christian too... Why are you responding to a question no one asked?
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