That’s not enough to make Corel’s the cheapest suite in town the company believes most consumers won’t take the trouble to seek out Sun’s $80 StarOffice 7 or download the latter’s free sibling 1.1. (Teachers and students, who can get the educational edition of Microsoft Office for $150, can get the corresponding WordPerfect Office box for $100 the just-as-daunting-as-Microsoft-Access database Paradox continues to be part of Corel’s OEM-oriented Professional edition.)

Toward that goal, the WordPerfect Office 12 package that premieres tomorrow is priced at $300 versus $399 for Microsoft Office 2003 Standard Edition, with an upgrade price - offered to users of Microsoft’s humble Works 7.0, let alone Office 2000 or XP - of $150 versus $239.

The huge challenge for Corel is to get people to consider its alternative, period - to dare to try WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, and Presentations in a market ruled by Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. That’s not to say that Microsoft’s dominant productivity suite isn’t great software, or for that matter that Corel’s blows it away both are first-class, formidably powerful word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation combos, though extra conveniences ranging from friendlier formatting help to built-in Adobe Acrobat PDF output make WordPerfect Office an at least arguably preferable alternative. Once you start using WordPerfect Office 12, you won’t miss Microsoft Office.

Wordperfect office 12