Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!paperboy!hsdndev!husc6!encore!houligan!epeterso From: epeterso@houligan.encore.com (Eric Peterson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications Subject: Re: When will new WordPerfect be available? Message-ID: Date: 14 Jan 91 19:50:00 GMT References: <1991Jan14.002805.1@ccvax.iastate.edu> <1991Jan14.073918.27523@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> Sender: news@Encore.COM Reply-To: epeterson@encore.com (Eric Peterson) Organization: Encore Computer Corporation, Diagnostic Development Lines: 94 Nntp-Posting-Host: houligan.encore.com News-Software: NN 6.4.12 rjc@geech.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: | Most Microsoft stuff is crap, Is this a statement of personal experience or one of second-hand information? Sounds to me more like the latter, especially since Microsoft puts out some of the highest quality software in the MS-DOS world. | Lotus is a company whom I feel everyone should boycott(because of | some of the stuff they are trying to do with copyright laws, databases of | credit info, etc See comp.org.eff.talk, or the LPF at GNU) As has been discussed at length on various news groups, Lotus Marketplace contains *no* information that is subject to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. They are *not* distributing credit information. They are, however, including estimates of personal income which consumers have freely provided, generally through product registration cards. But that's besides the point. | If Word is so great, why does it take 700 pages to describe how it works? | Word Processors are supposed to be intuitive! Word is intuitive, just as much as any other GUI product. I've sat down at a Mac and churned out documents with Word without ever touching the manual or calling up the help screen. Of course, what I think you really meant is WordPerfect, not Word (two diferent products), which is also intuitive, both in the MS-DOS version (5.1) and in the AmigaDOS version (4.1). I think 700 pages is an appropriate size for such a manual, which probably does not cover the complete functionality of Word or WP. But it's long enough to include most everything you could want to do without scaring people away from itself. Remember that this is the *reference* manual we're talking about, not the *user* manual. | You keep citing the 'depth' that Word has over other word processors, how | about listing SPECIFIC examples and features? Oh, please, let's not get into a features war here (and if we do, let's take it to .advocacy so that those of us concerned with real issues don't have to watch). | And how do you know | what big name companies think? Lotus, Microsoft, etc don't lose money | porting software, they MAKE money. When you do the port yourself, as WordPerfect is doing, you lose money when your money invested in the port doesn't return your original investment. | I recall a discussion on a local net | a while back that said Lotus requires you to pay them between $7-15 million | to do a port (more than Commodore's profit for 1 year.) Even if they sold | only 1 copy, they still made plenty. True in Lotus' case, but not in the case of WordPerfect, which I believe is the topic here. | I just got a demo of TurboText (an Amiga editor from abcfd20). This is | THEE best text editor I have ever seen. It blows Emacs, CED, TxEd, BRIEF out of | the water. TurboText is a *text*editor*, not a *word*processor*. There is a VERY big difference between the two, in addition to the fact that your statement is yet again irrelevant. | It all boils down to 'bandwagon' and 'big-name.' It all boils down to "quality" and "functionality", not "image". | Alot of people aren't using | things because of their quality, but because of their name/reputation. | People don't wear rolexes because they are the most technically superior | watch on the market. They wear them because they are 'in' and expensive. | The same thing applies to things like WordPerfect, 1-2-3, IBM. WordPerfect is a *very* powerful word processor. If you'd ever actually tried to use it beyond demonstrating to yourself that you hate it, you would know that. It's not elegant, but it works. And it would be particularly wonderful if there was an Amiga version of 5.1, which is what this thread was all about in the first place. Personally, I'd love to see WP5.1 ported to the Amiga. (Actually, I'd like to see FrameMaker for the Amiga, but this is probably possible under Amiga Unix). Ugh. Eric -- Eric Peterson <> epeterson@encore.com <> uunet!encore!epeterson Encore Computer Corp. * Ft. Lauderdale, Florida * (305) 587-2900 x 5208 Why did Constantinople get the works? Gung'f abobql'f ohfvarff ohg gur Ghexf.