WHAT'S A "SUITE"
..........AND WHY WOULD I WANT ONE?

(reprinted from Fred's Findings, 8/6/2001)

Fred asked me to write this article for his readers to let you know the reasons I recommend using a Suite of software as opposed to buying individual products.

First, lets make sure you all know what a "Suite" is.

 Personally, I never understood why they call it a "suite". I thought a suite was two adjoining rooms in a hotel. OK. Maybe THAT'S why they call it a "suite" of software ...... because you never really leave, you move freely from one room (program) to the other.

So. The number one reason to buy a Suite (examples: Microsoft Office Suite, Lotus Smart Suite, Norton SystemWorks, etc.) is cost. Unless you absolutely know that you will NEVER ever ever need to use a spreadsheet or make a slide presentation and the only software you want on your computer is a word processing program, it's much more cost effective to buy a suite of programs instead of buying them one at a time. For example, Microsoft Office 2000 Premium includes Access (a database maker), Excel (financial spreadsheets), FrontPage (website creator), Internet Explorer (web browser), Outlook (email and calendar), PhotoEditor (graphics editor), PowerPoint (slide shows), Publisher (desktop publishing), and Word (word processor).  All for less than the cost of buying any two of the included programs individually. So, if you think you will ever have the need for more than one of these, buy the suite.

Secondly, if you buy a suite with all the programs made by the same company, instead of individual programs made by different companies, you know they are all compatible. This means you will have no problems taking something you created in one and using it in another. For example, it's easy to take a spreadsheet made in Excel and add it into a PowerPoint slide show. You can also put a form on a webpage made with FrontPage for your visitors to fill out and the results can be automatically included in your database in Access. Or, you can configure Outlook to use Word as its email editor so you can have access to all your favorite word processor tools while writing your email. When you have a whole suite installed in your computer, it adds to the capabilities of all the individual programs. And, if you use individual programs made by different companies, you will have to find converters to make data transferable between them, and in many instances, these converters do not yet exist. 

Third, it's easier to learn a suite of programs than it is to learn individual programs. Because the suite is all made by the same company, the menus and toolbars and general interface are similar in all of them. Once you have mastered one, the others don't feel so foreign to you. By the time you tackle the last one in the suite, you know your way around pretty well.

Fourth. Registration for any program you buy will not include technical support for other software. So, if you create a Mail Merge in Microsoft Word and use a Lotus 123 spreadsheet as your address data source and it doesn't work, you can't get support from Microsoft or Lotus. If you use the programs included in a suite, the company that made that suite will offer technical support, not only for each program, but for the way they talk to each other.

Fifth. Hard drive space. Since most of these programs use things like spellcheckers and other proofing tools and graphics libraries, in a suite, these only need to be installed once and they are shared by all of the programs. When you buy a Word Processor from one company and a spreadsheet program from another, they will both load their dictionaries (imagine the size of these!) and their graphics collections (another space hog) and fill up your hard drive with huge files that are basically duplicates of one another. Yet, they are only compatible with the program they came with so you must have them both.

And Sixth. Ease of installation. Installing a suite is one step that installs them all and sets up all the necessary relationships between them.  If you install all of your programs separately, you may be prompted to make decisions you don't understand and could therefore render the programs unusable with each other.

So, I guess I gave you enough to think about here. And I'm sure you will find people who disagree and say it's best to buy individual software for each task based on the merit of the software. And, for the advanced user, I agree this is true. I certainly would never tell a graphic designer who uses Word and Excel that they should abandon Adobe PhotoShop for Microsoft PhotoEditor. But, for the average user, a suite will just make your life easier.

Oh, and before I forget. Those of you who have something installed in your computer called Microsoft Works should know that this is not a suite, like Microsoft Office. This is known as an Integrated Software Package, which basically means that it is not a collection of individual programs, but instead it is one program with sub-programs within it. These sub-programs are indeed compatible with one another and offer all the same advantages as a suite. The main difference is the sub-programs are smaller than their full program counterparts. An Integrated Software Program is a good alternative for those who do not want or need all the bells and whistles offered by a Suite. 

Linda Johnson is a college instructor of all of the Microsoft Office Programs, as well as Adobe PhotoShop and Windows. She has worked helpdesk and teaches and lectures at many local businesses in her area. She is the author of "MS Word MAGIC! ....Book I: Fonts, Fun & Formats....and Book II: Table Wizardry" and "How To Start a Career as a Software Trainer" and hosts her own Office Tips page at The Newbie Club at http://newbieclub.com/officetips/?buntah For more info, see her résumé at http://personal-computer-tutor.com/MyResume.htm