WordPERFECT

WordPerfect exemplifies a basic truth about the software business. If you really make a terrific product, nobody needs to buy it again. The whole business is driven by bugs and unfilled promises.

Microsoft needn't worry, because every new advance in hardware makes an upgrade of the OS necessary, and it has proven that people are gullible when it comes to new "features." Hope springs eternal, like Charlie Brown trusting Lucy to hold the football.

WordPerfect is about as near perfect as it could be. It handles footnotes, endnotes, tables and indexes much better than MS Word, which doesn't even allow you to view the codes embedded in the text. WordPerfect still has a few maddening quirks which have more to do with trying to automate things that shouldn't be and end up doing things you don't want.

The torpedoing of WordPerfect is the original sin of Microsoft, and the only way to atone for it is to separate MS's apps business from its OS and tools business. That's what the government's antitrust action should have accomplished, but it blew it, and now we're all stuck with a second-rate word processor as a result.