Jim,
WordPerfect was correct in its assumption that business writers preferred text to graphics. WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS remains the industry standard AND the favorite for many of us who produce huge amounts of text-intensive documents, albeit most now run the DOS version under some flavor of Windows rather than DESQview. Nothing has come along to equal good ol' ASCII text for cross-platform compatibility.
For quite some time WordPerfect for Windows tied with Lotus' Ami Pro as the preferred GUI wordprocessor, running way ahead of Microsoft Word and the other Windows wordprocessors. For professional writers, the resounding accolades went out to XY-Write for Windows. Ala Carte was another favorite. Microsoft Word was always bringing up the rear in those early days of Windows 3.x.
When Borland's Quatro Pro burst on the scene, it quickly gained well-deserved market share over Excel and Lotus, and Borland's Paradox data base was the clear favorite--both in their DOS and Windows versions.
Quarterdeck was the first with the most among the multitaskers (which Windows is) with it's innovative and elegant DESQview. DESQview will run Windows 3.1 and Windows programs in standard mode. To my knowledge, Windows cannot run DESQview.
Novell's then CEO Noorda harbored a deep and abiding hatred for Bill Gates and Microsoft which negatively affected his business decisions with respect to his acquisitions of WordPerfect and Digital Research's DR-DOS and Unix, effectively killing those products. Until that unfortunate event in time, WordPerfect for DOS and for Windows had continued to hold the lion's market share for wordprocessors.
Caldera picked up DR-DOS, now called OpenDOS, and offers it free for the download for personal use. Corel now has WordPerfect, and many of us think CEO Cowpland must surely be a Microsoft mole, that being the only logical explanation for his bungling of the venerable and still much beloved WordPerfect.
Holly |
