Selecting one of today’s new multiprogram software combinations is more like looking for a spouse than searching for a box of software.
These packages, called suites, bring into a single, albeit hefty, box business-strength programs that include a spreadsheet, word processor, database and presentation-maker.
These programs are orders of magnitude more sophisticated than the all-purpose software packages that ship with most personal computers today, including ClarisWorks and Microsoft Works.
In my case, ClarisWorks or Microsoft Works is sufficient-and then some-to handle all the word processing, record keeping, budget planning and picture drawing that I actually need.
I am, after all, just a guy with a paycheck, a wife, a couple of kids and a house three feet from the neighbors. But under the Kmart necktie beats the heart of a supernerd.
For months I’ve been keeping company with Lotus SmartSuite for Windows, the identical package of software used by many Fortune 500 companies to do things like run airlines and track corporate budgets.
A quick word about hardware before you decide to hitch up with SmartSuite. To make this work, you must have a machine with an Intel 486-25MHz chip or faster, and you’ll probably need 70 megabytes of hard-drive space to hold everything. This really is Fortune 500 computing power.
But if you opt for SmartSuite, it may be the only software you ever use. I don’t think you can go wrong with this one.
On the other hand, as is the case in selecting other longtime companions, tastes vary. You may get hitched up instead with one of the two major competitors, Microsoft’s Office or the WordPerfect/Borland suite from Novell Inc.
It is beyond the power of any reviewer to evaluate each of the massively complex suite programs on the scene and then state definitively which one to buy and which one to shun.
But starting today, I’ll hit the highlights of SmartSuite and then move on in coming months to the others.
It couldn’t be a more timely topic for personal computer users.
We all can expect substantial pressure in the form of advertising and price-slashing campaigns to convince us to marry up to one of the big-time combos.
That’s because a price war has broken out among Lotus Development Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. as the companies have pinned much of their hopes of selling applications on suites.
Month in and month out the trade publication Computer Reseller News polls software stores and finds that the two top sellers among all titles are Microsoft Office followed by Lotus SmartSuite.
The companies respond by cutting prices and, as the margins get tighter for the sellers, buyers should be getting as happy as gophers in soft dirt.
If you’ve already got a word processor from Microsoft, Lotus or WordPerfect, it doesn’t cost much more to upgrade to an entire suite than it does just to get the latest version of the word processor alone.
Likewise, current spreadsheet or database owners can do the same and add word processing and graphics to their repertoires.
Street prices vary wildly for computer software, but it’s usually possible in Chicago to upgrade from one program, say a word processor, to the entire SmartSuite package of five programs for around $300. If you don’t have anything to upgrade, the tariff is closer to $500.
SmartSuite incorporates five blockbuster programs, including the world’s best-known spreadsheet, Lotus 1-2-3, the elegant word processor Ami Pro, a slick personal information manager called Organizer, a relational database named Approach and a fine graphics program, Freelance Graphics.
When you fire up Ami Pro, you can click on an icon at the top of any page you are working on and summon the full power of a Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet or any of the other bundled programs.
One icon brings up the Approach database and another puts you in Freelance Graphics, the program used by high-powered business folk to prepare audio-visual aids such as slides.
Say, for example, that you were just doing something as mundane as writing a personal history of how you accumulated your baseball card collection, what you paid for each and what each card now is worth.
You could type the data into a spreadsheet with the name of the player in the first cell, the team in the second, the position played in the third, the price paid in the fourth and the current price in the fifth.
Then you could use 1-2-3’s sorting powers to analyze your data. For example, you could find out how many shortstops from the national league are in your collection and whether the average asking price for a shortstop’s card is higher or lower than for a left fielder’s card.
Then you could jump back to the word processor and write a few paragraphs about the shortstop data.
To illustrate those paragraphs you could go back to the spreadsheet and use the mouse to paint and copy just the rows and cells with the data for shortstops.
That could then be pasted into your piece just below the text, giving you a nice-looking table of the cards you were talking about.
Next you might fire up the Freelance Graphics part of SmartSuite and convert the data into a professional-looking full-page slide in which the card collection is illustrated by pie charts, bar charts, fancy headlines, clip art and other bells and whistles.
Back in 1-2-3 you could quickly churn out comparative bar charts showing the value of your collection when you bought each card and its estimated value today, along with charts showing changes in card values by position, league, etc.
Meanwhile, as you while away your day messing with your hobby, you can call up at the click of a mouse your personal information manager in the form of Lotus Organizer.
This slick program presents your appointments, your diary, your phone lists, address lists, to-do lists and other personal information in the form of an on-screen daybook.
The main screen is a picture of an opened notebook and you click on tabs along the edge to call up each category just as you would open a paper planner.
Addresses kept in Organizer can be quickly pasted onto the top of individual letters you write, or the whole list can be used with Ami Pro for a merged mass mailing.
Your appointment list in Organizer can be linked to one of the many fancy document templates contained in Ami Pro. This allows you to print out very fancy weekly, monthly and yearly calendars showing everything you did in the past or have to do in the future.
While the example above is homely and simplistic, it should make clear the power that SmartSuite and the competing integrated software packages from Microsoft and Novell can bring to the small offices, home offices and even rec rooms of America.
Once you walk with one of these down the aisle at Elek-Tek or Egghead, you’re likely to spend a good part of your life from then on in its company.
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Tribune computer writer James Coates can be reached via the Internet at jcoates1@aol.com
