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Subject:Re: Word '97 vs. Frame 5.1.1 From:Matt Ion <soundy -at- NEXTLEVEL -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 1 Apr 1997 09:52:43 -0800
On Tue, 1 Apr 1997 07:02:00 -0600, Mitch Berg wrote:
>I'm getting ready to junk Office and buy SmartSuite in protest.
Before you do either, take a look at StarOffice, from StarDivision in
Germany. I use v3.1 extensively, and find that though it looks and
feels a lot like Word 6 in many respects, it also has a lot of very
nifty little features (such as detachable drop-down toolbars). It also
integrated a web browser/designer into the word processor and allowed
you to load/save files directly to/from a URL the same as you would the
hard drive, long before Office 97 "invented" the idea.
V4.0 was just released in Germany, and the International version is
expected within a couple months; it goes far beyond anything else I've
seen. For one thing, instead of a bundle of separate,
integrated-but-not-quite-perfectly-integrated components, it is ONE
program with loadable modules for each task (word processing,
spreadsheet, image editing, presenatation layout, charting, etc.) This
concept lends itself very easily to... ta da! a client/server Java
suite, which I understand has also been released along with the
standalone version (eat that, Corel).
Best of all, it's highly cross-platform: there are OS/2, Windows 16-
and 32-bit, and Linux versions (among others, I think there may be Mac
and/or Solaris flavors as well) of 3.1, and the offering should be
broader for 4.0.
The info (in English) is at www.stardivision.com; their main page (in
German), with downloadable demos of 3.1, is at www.stardivision.de
Your friend and mine,
Matt
<insert standard disclaimer here>
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