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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."
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.
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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.
and when you get something like a stuck italics function where there is no character? How do you select it?
And why do you have to go through an obtuse menu for each block of text? Why can't I see the entire document's formatting options at once?
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
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.
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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.
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ACK
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.