Allan Atherton wrote: >Jerry Yeager <jerry at browseryshop.com> wrote: > >>... There has been some very serious speculation about the future of >>AppleWorks... Maybe it will see that serious upgrade that will put it as the >>Office killer that it certainly could be. Or maybe Apple will keep waiting to >>see how relations with Microsoft go.... >> > >I hope the relatons go OK. I don't see how AppleWorks can be an Office >killer, because Office exists mainly in the PC world beyond Apple's control. >I don't see how the present transparent cross-platform nature of Office Mac >could be replaced by Claris Translators or Xtend or MacLinkPlus Pro, all of >which I still have in OS9. >If Microsoft were to drop Office Mac, I am afraid it would be the end of >Macs except as backroom niche machines. I would certainly have to throw in >the towel. > >Allan Atherton > > At the risk of being banished forever from the list, I would like to interject with a few views and assumptions of my own, since you touched on a subject that is near and dear to me. AppleWorks! It's one of the few programs I know since I rarely buy software. There's loads of software on the market today, and one thing I found out in my 8 years of desktop computing. No software is worth the CD it came on, if the user don't know what to do with it. I don't think any program is better than another unless the user knows both of them. Then, and only then, can they say this program is better than the other one. However, when relaying this information, one should say, "I prefer this program to that one", because someone else might feel the opposite to be true.
I pride myself in the fact that there's things I can do with AppleWorks that long-time Mac enthusiasts have a hard time comprehending, and that includes die-hard AppleWorks followers. I've never heard of anyone making an animation with Office, or AppleWorks for that matter, although, I imagine, it may have been done before. The usual chain of events in computing is, if you want to do animations, get an animation program, graphics, a graphic design program and-so-on and-so-forth. No one sits at a computer and tries to figure out how to accomplish something with a program that is not designed for that purpose. Except for me and a few others that are as idiotic as I am. But, I found that to be exciting and fun. It may have no immediate value, but it does give a feeling of accomplishment. One of the major problems in desktop computing is, most people get so caught up in trying to learn how a particular program works, that they're not looking at how the program is working, and all this good knowledge is out the window. Another big problem is, many Mac users are misled. They listen to things they shouldn't be listening to. For example! I've asked many Mac users why they bought a program like Excel instead of using an AppleWorks spreadsheet. The usual replies were, "It's the best" or "It's the most popular". "You can do things with it that you can't do with AppleWorks". And my response to them was, "And I can do things with an AppleWorks spreadsheet that you can't do with Excel". So far, I haven't been wrong. But, that don't make AppleWorks better than Excel. To prove my point! How many AppleWorks users in the group are aware you can do page layouts with AppleWorks? I mean things like a magazine or major newspaper. Don't get me wrong. It's no PageMaker or Quark, but it does retail for under $100.00, and it does spreadsheets too, while the other two programs don't. Whether Office is better than AppleWorks or not, isn't the point. If you have a need to communicate with PC's, I think you should get a PC, rather than try to make a Mac look like a PC. PC's never cared about communicating with Macs in the past, but I heard somewhere that there was PC software that tries to emulate a Mac now. From the way I see it, they gave up their interface for ours, and now they're trying to communicate with us. I think that sort of says something. If we stick together, we could possibly force some of them to play by our rules and have a chance for survival. But if we play by their rules, we'll probably go down fighting. -- Tony LaFemina Major in Layout & Design Techniques Minor in Software Fundamentals http://hometown.aol.com/visitmacland/index.html mailto:remacs at optonline.net | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 28. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>.
