'While Word 2.x was failing to wow customers, Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, and others were providing superior products. 'In reality, Office was a bit late to the party,' wrote another reader. All those open-source geeks wouldn't be nearly so effective if Microsoft hadn't thoroughly and clearly defined the target - i.e., the user needs - for them.'īut others think Office allowed inferior Microsoft applications to win out over better products. 'I remember the days of Lotus 1-2-3 and Harvard Graphics and WordStar and GoldenGate, and life with MS Office is soooooooooo much better and more productive. 'I think Microsoft gets a lot of criticism that they DON'T deserve,' wrote one reader. Some feel that deathblow the Office bundling dealt other productivity applications was just a real smart move on Microsoft's part. While retaining popularity in some markets, particularly legal circles, WordPerfect now generally gets little attention as a Word competitor compared to free software alternatives.īut there seems to be plenty of dispute about whether WordPerfect simply failed to compete or was a victim of Microsoft monopolistic practices. But WordPerfect was late with its first Windows version, and then the bundling of Word with Microsoft Office on many PCs resulted in WordPerfect's sale - first to Novell, then Corel in 1996 - aimed at producing a competitive office suite. Early in the IBM PC era, Satellite Software's WordPerfect 4.X series supplanted WordStar as the most popular word processor, based largely on its macro capabilities, 'reveal codes' feature, and the company's reputation for high-quality free support. The basic historic facts of the WordPerfect saga aren't in dispute. Why did WordPerfect - the word processing program beloved by so many loved in the DOS era - lose out to Microsoft Word? That has been the subject of some rather hot debate in my discussion boards this year, even when it was considerably off topic. I don't know why, but over the last year readers have several times brought up a topic that is a something of an historic gripe - actually, in terms of the technology world, one that is ancient history.

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