re: debate over systems

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2 total messages Started by Avi Rappoport Wed, 10 Feb 1993 18:37

#2541

Author: Avi Rappoport
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 18:37

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I sent a catalog to Andrew Beveridge.  If anyone else wants materials
sent, please mail me directly at nilesinc@well.sf.ca.us.  I'm always happy
to mail / fax / email information!

Avi Rappoport
Niles & Associates, Inc.

another point of view (was: Re: debate over systems)

#2542

Author: Ethan J Benatan
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 23:48

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I thought that maybe someone might be sceptical about a review of a 
product written by the competition, so I thought I would add my $0.02
worth.  I have no relation to Niles or RIS other than as a customer.

I have only used the Mac versions of either, and in a nutshell, I must 
say that Avi Rappoport was extremely kind about Reference Manager.  I
was thouroughly unimpressed with it.  It has a horrifically bad
interface, which is bad, but it flat doesn't work, which is worse.  I
routinely suffered crashes and failures while trying to do import and 
export operations.  

To make matters worse, RIS charges separately for a variety of different
modules as well as for support agreements, which makes their product
substantially more expensive than EndNote+.  Of course, you can then use
their 800 number for tech support.  This might save you a lot of money
;-)

In summary I cannot recommend the Mac version of Reference Manager at
all.  Though I have to admit that their tech-support people are kind and
friendly; I did get to talk to them a lot...

I have since moved to EndNote+ and I am  very happy with it. There
are bits that should be added, but *it works* well, and it has a good
and simple interface, and it dovetails very nicely with Word, the
word-processor of overwhelming choice in my environment (academic).  My
users rave about it. Niles offer only 2 separate modules (only one more
than I would like to see....).  Their tech support is also first-rate,
but I have needed to use it only once: to request the (free) software
they provide to import my files from Reference Manager.

Reviews in CABIOS (and, if I recall correctly, MacUser) seem to support
these observations.  Just my experience, but I thought I'd let you know
how I felt after using and supporting these two packages.

So, Avi, when are we going to get flexible formatting and
import/export? 

Ethan Benatan
benatan@vms.cis.pitt.edu

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