Are there viable alternatives to 'Microsoft Office'?<\/p>\n
By Zatni Arbi<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP) First, here is a very exciting piece of news from
\nCompaq. In a press release that I received last week, the company
\nannounced a new 17" LCD monitor for its desktop PC. The new
\nmonitor, which takes far less space than a comparable 19" or 20"
\nCRT model, has a resolution of 1280 x 1024, a resolution level
\nthat is also known as SXGA.<\/p>\n
Each dot is 0.26 mm, just 0.01 mm larger than the best CRT
\nmonitor that we have. To save even more desktop space, we can use
\nthe optional adjustable swing arm or simply mount the monitor on
\nthe wall. Add to all these features the 200 nit brightness level
\nand the 160 degree viewing angle. The latter means that, unlike
\nyour old notebook screen, people can view images or read text
\nfrom points farther to the sides of the monitor.<\/p>\n
A USB hub is optional. We can connect the TFT 7010 monitor to
\nthe CPU's USB port and then up to four USB devices can be
\nconnected to the hub. The monitor can accept both digital and
\nanalog signals, making it compatible with our existing VGA card
\nor its DVI replacement in the future.<\/p>\n
What made the news really exciting was the price. The press
\nrelease said that the monitor would be offered at US$1,499.<\/p>\n
Wow! The prices of 15" monitors have been going down from the
\n$1,000 mark at a snail's pace, and this aggressive pricing will
\npush them down a little bit faster. Traditionally, the price of a
\n17" CRT monitor is almost twice of the one just one level below,
\nand similarly the price of a 19" or 20" CRT monitor is twice that
\nof a 17" one. On the LCD side, the price of a 17" is normally
\nmore than twice that of a 15".<\/p>\n
Compaq Indonesia told me that it would be some time before I
\nwould get the chance to review a demo unit, as the product had
\njust been announced in the U.S. However, just to read the release
\nalready made me so excited, and I now look forward to testing the
\nreal thing.<\/p>\n
News from MS<\/p>\n
If you've been following the news from Redmond, at least two
\nimportant developments are worth sharing.<\/p>\n
First, Windows 95 is being phased out. Microsoft will no
\nlonger make it available directly from them, and support for
\nWindows 95 users will cost them some cash. The upcoming Office
\nsuite, i.e., Microsoft Office 10, will not run on Windows 95.<\/p>\n
The second is perhaps the more significant development. In its
\nattempt to curb the use of illegal copies of its products,
\nMicrosoft has announced that it will apply the so-called "Product
\nActivation Technology" in its future products -- Windows, Office,
\nVisio, etc. The method will enable Microsoft to limit the number
\nof times a copy of software is installed on individual machines.<\/p>\n
In addition, Microsoft's "edge-to-edge" hologram method has
\nalso been proven to be reliable in fighting software
\ncounterfeiting because nobody has been able to duplicate it.<\/p>\n
However, Microsoft's problems are not limited to product
\ncounterfeiting and copying. A lot of users are not interested in
\nbuying the original software products anyway, so the hologram
\nwill not concern them. To them, the Product Activation Technology
\nis more likely to be something that they will hate.<\/p>\n
Industry analysts and observers believe that Microsoft's move
\nwill drive more people faster to Linux and other open-platform
\ninitiatives, and alternative software.<\/p>\n
Alternatives<\/p>\n
With Microsoft Office reportedly being used by at least 80
\npercent of computer users worldwide, it is difficult to think
\nthat we can ever work without it. Each time we share a file with
\nsomeone, the typical question is "Which version of MS Office do
\nyou have?"<\/p>\n
However, if you have two or three PCs and a notebook at home,
\nhow can you justify the expense of buying original MS Office for
\neach of them? Cyberian Outpost, the highly popular U.S. mail-
\norder company, offers MS Office Standard for $459.95.<\/p>\n
What are the alternatives? First and foremost, we can still
\nuse the software that we have been using and forget about
\nupgrades and their new features. The only thing is that we have
\nto agree to use the Rich Text Format as the standard for
\nexchanging document files. Some formatting features may be lost,
\nbut for most purposes this is a workable solution.<\/p>\n
Or, we can use one of the growing number of MS Office-
\ncompatible products -- some of which are cheap, others are free.
\nThinkFree is one of the new applications that can read and write
\nMS Office 2000's files. ThinkFree comprises Write, Calc and Show.
\nThe names already indicate what they are for.<\/p>\n
Strangely, despite its name ThinkFree is not free. The company
\n(www.thinkfree.com) currently gives you a 30-day trial period.
\nYou can subscribe to it as a service based on the Application
\nService Provider (ASP) model for $49,95 per year. The beauty is
\nthat you can use it from any computer anywhere on the planet as
\nlong as you have a browser and Internet connection. ThinkFree
\neven gives you a 20 MB storage space on their servers, so you can
\nalso access your files from any place in the world.<\/p>\n
The first drawback is that ThinkFree's features are very
\nlimited. The AutoCorrect, for example, does not fix typos such as
\nSOme and teh. I could not find the way to enlarge the page
\ndisplay to optimally use the screen. If you use Alt-F instead of
\nclicking on the File menu, you will be out of luck, too, as
\nThinkFree does not support it.<\/p>\n
Although ThinkFree's Calc can read a spreadsheet file in Excel
\n2000 format, it will not open it if it is password-protected.
\nHowever, the biggest minus point is that you basically have to
\nstay connected to the Internet as long as you work, because even
\nthe data for AutoCorrect, Settings, Help, etc., are stored on
\nThinkFree's Website instead of on your local hard disk. This
\ndefinitely will not work well here in Indonesia, where most
\npeople still use the dial-up connection to the Internet. Even
\nwith a cable modem connection, I always suffered a lag of a few
\nseconds before ThinkFree's Help, for example, began to show up.<\/p>\n
Last week, I mentioned in this column StarOffice that you can
\ndownload fro free from Sun Microsystems' Website. StarOffice has
\nso many features that we have come to take for granted in MS
\nOffice 2000. CApital, for example, will be automatically
\ncorrected to Capital. It also has an on-the-fly spellchecker. We
\ncan also send documents out as e-mail like we do in MS Office.
\nYou should try StarOffice 5.2 while it is still downloadable for
\nfree (by the way, this entire article was written using this
\nsoftware).<\/p>\n
However, the best thing that we all can hope for would be
\nMicrosoft's willingness to make their products -- which are
\ngenerally still the best in their respective areas -- much, much
\nmore affordable for the rest of us. It is OK if the products are
\ncopy-protected, but it should definitely be affordable.<\/p>\n
Although in some workplace environments paying for the
\nsoftware as you use it is a feasible solution and is already a
\ncommon practice, it will not work for our home PCs, especially if
\nwe do not have a broadband connection to the Internet. We still
\nneed to have the entire software installed on our individual
\nmachines. Personally, I would have no problem paying $70 to $100
\nfor the next upgrade of Microsoft Office and get the original CD-
\nROM. After all, it is part of the tools that I use to earn my
\nliving. But, at $459.95? Maybe in the future. (zatni@cbn.net.id)<\/p>",
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