When Will We See Software Quotfor The Rest Of Usquot

Writen by Douglas Hanna

Microsoft Office is a very powerful packagewith its Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access programs.

It can also be powerfully expensive.

If you buy MS Office bundled with a new computer, it will probably add around $149 to your purchase price. If you don't buy it bundled with a new computer, you might have to pay as much as $499. However, if you qualify, you can buy the Student/Teacher Edition for a much better price -- around $149.

If $149 is too much for you, there's MS Works which comes bundled with many computers. It adds so little to a computer's purchase price, it might just as well be free. However, its look and feel can be kind of clunky and irritating and, in some ways, it's too elementary.

Speaking of free, there's OpenOffice.org, a very richly-featured suite of products that costs nothing. That's right. Nothing. And it includes a spreadsheet program, word processor, presentation program, database program and draw package. (Note: You can download OpenOffice.org from www. openoffice.org.)

The problem with MS Office and OpenOffice.org is that they have programs most of us will never use and features that most of us don't need.

For example, I am using OpenOffice.org's Writer program to write this article. When I click on Edit, I get options such as "Compare Document," "Navigator," and "Exchange Database." When would I ever want to "Exchange Database," for goodness sake?

So, when is someone going to offer unbundled software for the rest of us?

In other words, if you don't need a presentation program, you wouldn't be forced to buy or download one. Conversely, if all you need is a handy-dandy presentation program, you could buy just that. In this ideal world, I would buy a word processing program and maybe a simple spreadsheet program. And the word processing program would give me just the features I need and not a lot of stuff like "Compare Document," and "Navigator."

Well, you might ask, since OpenOffice.org is free, what does it matter if it comes with programs and features you don't need?

I would give two answers to this. First, the programs I don't need just sit around taking up space on my hard drive. Second, I like Writer, but when I click on an item like "Edit," I don't want to have to deal with a bunch of features I don't need and, in some cases, don't even understand.

I know Microsoft will never unbundle Office and I understand why. I also understand that Sun (the company behind OpenOffice.org) won't unbundle its suite of office products because it's true objective is to sell the program to corporations.

But isn't there someone out there interested in selling software "for the rest of us?"

Speaking of something for the rest of us, have you heard about HD radio technology? It makes AM sound as good as FM and FM sound almost like you were listening to a CD ... and its free! To learn more about this amazing new technology, just go my Web site, http://www.hd-radio-home.com, to get all the buzz. Douglas Hanna is a retired marketing executive and the author of numerous articles on HD radio and family finances.