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Suite Survivors

Microsoft's Office dominates, but it still has rivals. Here's a look at how they stack up.

Harry McCracken, PCWorld.com

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From a sales standpoint, Microsoft Office won the suite wars years ago. But it still hasn't captured the hearts and minds of all suite users. Why not? For one thing, Corel's WordPerfect, Lotus's SmartSuite, and Sun's StarOffice all offer some features that Office lacks. And once you've grown comfortable with any suite, it's easier to stick with it than to jump to another.

Cost is another factor: All of Office's competitors undercut its price tag. Then there's freedom of choice--some users simply prefer a product that doesn't say "Microsoft" on the box.

Here are our brief appraisals of the other major suites:

Lotus SmartSuite Millennium Edition 9.6

The good: Covers all the suite basics well enough that current users have little reason to switch. Its Organizer personal information manager remains simple, fun, and highly useful; the unique FastSite application automatically turns documents into basic Web pages.

The bad: More than any other major suite, this one is looking long in the tooth--it hasn't undergone a sweeping overhaul since 1998.

The future: Fuzzy. Lotus says a modest update with better support for Microsoft files and other minor tweaks will appear by year's end. But will SmartSuite ever see another major upgrade? Lotus is noncommittal.

List price: $173 upgrade, $437 full

Lotus.com

Corel WordPerfect Office 2002

The good: A solid suite that just received a significant upgrade. WordPerfect is a terrific word processor, especially for long and complex documents, and the suite's Professional edition sports better speech recognition than Office XP.

The bad: Casual users will probably find Corel's WordPerfect Office slightly less intuitive than Microsoft's Office. It's also less feature-rich in some areas, such as built-in drawing tools. And its import filters for Microsoft file formats tend to strip out fancy formatting.

The future: Corel says an upgrade to WordPerfect Family Pack--its home-oriented productivity suite--is in the works.

List price: $159 to $499, depending on features

Officecommunity.com

Sun StarOffice 5.2

The good: A jaw-dropping software bargain--it's a free download ($40 shrink-wrapped). Very full-featured, with strong graphics capabilities; handles Microsoft Office files surprisingly well.

The bad: Price aside, this isn't the world's friendliest suite. Its learning curve can be steep, and its all-in-one approach--it's one great big program--results in a cluttered app that bogs down underpowered PCs.

The future: Version 6.0 is due sometime in 2001. Sun is cagey about details, but says the upgrade will demand less in the way of system resources.

List price: Free for download, $40 shrink-wrapped

Sun.com/staroffice

Harry McCracken is an executive editor for PC World.
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