Assignment 2 week 2
After searching the internet for office suites I came up with three good choices of different strengths and weaknesses.
I myself use Microsoft office because I have faith in the brand name and I like having the technical support and I don’t mind the price tag. Microsoft office comes with a word processor program, a spreadsheet program, presentation program and a database management program as well. There is also a higher end version that contains email and software for a touch screen program. I like that work can be transferred back and forth between each program with ease, which makes completing assignments that have multiple aspects very efficient. Those are the positive aspects, some negative ones are the price tag, the fact that there are free programs that pretty much do the same thing and some people have aversions to Microsoft (CNET, 2007).
The next office suite I looked at and have used in the past is called Open Office. Open Office has the same type of programs that come with Microsoft office and has pretty much the same features. A positive aspect of this program is that it runs on all types of operating systems such as Linux and Solaris and can import files from all Microsoft’s office programs and after all its free and since its open sourced people are always updating it. Furthermore, if you know how to run all of Microsoft’s office programs then the user would have little difficulty running this one. Only negative I could see is that it isn’t from a major company and that could turn some off some people who like to feel that what they use is supported (PC authority, 2007).
The third and final office suite I looked into is Lotus SmartSuite. It contains pretty much the same type of programs such as a spreadsheet and a word processor. For the word processor, lotus included a voice recognition program called Via Voice and includes a microphone with the package. For users that are familiar with...