🚀 go-pugleaf

mike_steiner@qm.claris.com (Mike Steiner) writes:

>I won't promise to be objective, because I work for Claris, and can't be
>completely objective.  It goes with the territory.

>The major difference between ClarisWorks and MS Works is that in MS Works,
>each type of function has its own module and document, and you can't mix
>them.  If you want to put a table from a spreadsheet into a word processor,
>you have to open a spreadsheet document, do your spreadsheet stuff, copy
>it, and paste it into the word processor (and save the SS document if you
>think you may have to revise the data).  In ClarisWorks, you simply drag
>out a spreadsheet rectangle in the word processor document (the menus will
>change to the SS menus until you click out of the SS; then the menus will
>change back), and do your work right there.  You can open the SS into a
>full window if you need, but that is just for working; the SS still remains
>in the WP document.  This is not limited to just SS and WP; any module can
>be used in any other module (the only exception is that you can't
>incorporate the telecommunications module into any other, or any other in
>it).

The integration isn't quite a seamless as it sounds.  If you put a
spreadsheet into a word processor document as described here, the SS is
effectively pasted on top of the WP document.  It isn't really IN the WP
document.  If, for example, you create a SS in a WP document to create a
table, and then add text to the paragraphs preceeding the table, the
text will flow underneath the "table" and disappear.  You have to move
the "table" around manually to sit on top of the space that you've
created in the WP document (again, manually).  You can cut and paste the
SS into your WP document, and it will follow the text around, but the SS
will no longer be "live" - it will be just like in MSWorks. 

>Microsoft Works had a 90% market share before ClarisWorks was introduced. 
>Now ClarisWorks has a 75% market share.  Some of this is due to marketting
>activities, but most of it is due to the solidity of the product.

How much of this had to do with the facts that (1) ClarisWorks came
out several months before MSWorks 2.0, and (2) Claris and Apple have a
rather closer relationship than MS and Apple.  (How many copies of
MSWorks have been "given away" with Performas?)