Hot on Microsoft Office 2000`s heals, Lotus has released its SmartSuite 9.5 Millennium Edition. The product is obviously targeted at Microsoft`s office suite market, but whether it has what it takes to beat or even compete with the marketing muscle that Microsoft puts behind Office remains to be seen.
What is it?
SmartSuite consists of its well-known 1-2-3 spreadsheet package; Word Pro word processor; the popular Lotus Organizer time and contact manager; Freelance Graphics for presentations; a database system called Approach; SmartCenter Internet information manager; and the all-new FastSite - Lotus` answer to FrontPage.
IBM also added its ViaVoice speech recognition software to the package, which integrates with Word Pro and Lotus 1-2-3. At first glance, this is the only true differentiator between Office and SmartSuite, but delving into the system reveals greater differences.
Ease of set-up
Lotus loses ground to Microsoft before getting off the starting blocks. The installation is simple if you use the Quick Install, but any attempts at customising the suite are strongly unadvised. The customisation process is cumbersome in the extreme, and users will quickly get frustrated at its complexity.
MS Office demonstrated what a slick and well-designed installation interface was all about, which leaves the user even more disappointed after having been exposed to both.
The installation takes quite a while, especially for full install, so take the time to go through the manual, make coffee and walk the dog.
Another black mark on the installation is Lotus` presumptuous attempt to take over your desktop. Upon rebooting, you will be faced with a multitude of tasks sitting in your taskbar, as well as an ugly brown quick-bar running along the top of your screen.
Ease of use
Ease of use varies considerably throughout the product set. Lotus 1-2-3 is a breeze to use, even if coming from an Excel environment. Just replace "@" for your functions, rather than "=", and you are on your way.
Approach, however, is an entirely different ballpark. Not recommended for faint-hearted users, this database manager is overly complex. There are some great example databases, but to create them from scratch will leave most technical user`s propeller spinning.
I was also unimpressed with Approach`s import facilities, which generally failed to connect to ODBC databases.
The newcomer to the suite - Lotus FastSite - is significantly easier to use than FrontPage 2000, but lacks the features and flexibility of its counterpart. It is perfectly suited to the non-technical user, but an intermediate to advanced Web designer will be wise to use FrontPage Express or FrontPage 2000 instead.
The ability of FastSite to convert MS Office and Lotus SmartSuite documents effortlessly into HTML was particularly impressive. FastSite instantly links new documents into your index pages for navigation. There are also lots of great templates to choose from to customise your site`s look-and-feel.
Organizer and Freelance Graphics can also be highly commended for ease of use. Both offer exactly what the SOHO market would want in the application. Organizer has a good band of loyal followers who often use it in conjunction with MS Office, and it still offers more than Outlook can deliver. Furthermore, the advanced functions are easier to find and operate than Outlook`s settings.
Freelance Graphics also offers some nifty features that are easy to access, and the wide range of wizards are very simple and quick to use.
Impressive features
IBM`s ViaVoice is the potential differentiator between Office and SmartSuite. IBM has been muttering under its breath about its breakthrough speech recognition software for some time, with one of the product managers even confiding that it would revolutionise the way we use computers forever.
If ViaVoice is the revolution, then quite frankly I`d rather stagnate. I thought that the SmartSuite set-up was slow and painful, but ViaVoice puts it to shame. For a start, you have to read it 100 sentences before it will even start up. About an hour (and a reboot) later I was ready to take it for a test run, excited about the possibilities of dictating a product review. Unfortunately, this was not to be.
The interpretations for what I said were highly inaccurate, with about a 60% failure rate. After correcting each word a few times, it started to get the picture, but I was not keen on shifting through the dictionary teaching it word after painful word. Even a thick American accent, which usually fools voice recognition software into behaving, did not work with this product.
Wrap up
Although Microsoft Office beats SmartSuite in most categories, it is still a feature-rich product suite that is ideally suited for the SOHO market. Its price makes it even more attractive. While the Office 2000 upgrade will cost you R2 399, the Lotus SmartSuite 9.5 upgrade costs a mere R800. In SA, the upgrade is being sold as the full version of SmartSuite. For cost-conscious buyers, this makes SmartSuite a very attractive alternative.
Prerequisites
Hardware
IBM PC or compatible with 486/66MHz or higher processor
VGA or higher resolution adapter and monitor
Mouse or other pointing device
Microsoft Windows 95, 98, or NT 4.0 compatible CD-ROM drive
Software
Microsoft Windows 95, 98, or NT 4.0
Memory
8MB minimum for Windows 95 or 98;
12MB recommended when running more than one application
16MB minimum for Windows NT 4.0
Disk space
Minimum hard disk: 94.3MB
Run from CD-ROM: 28MB
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