| INFOTECH - INFOTECH |
| August 01, 2006
Ability Office has alternatives to each application of the industry-standard Microsoft Office suite: Ability Write as an alternative to MS Word; Spreadsheet as an alternative to MS Excel; Presentation for MS PowerPoint; and Database for MS Access. In addition, Ability Suite also comes with a basic alternative to the Adobe Photoshop image editor, which it calls Photopaint, as well as photo album software. ICAP vice-president (not president as first posted) Mario Munoz said in an interview that the partnership will give Internet café owners a way around having to obtain copies of MS Office, which many Internet cafe operators find expensive despite discounted rates available to them. Munoz said Microsoft offers its Office Standard and Professional suites at 10,000 pesos and 15,000 respectively to cafe operators. But Ability Office costs 2,950 pesos for the Standard Edition and 4,960 pesos for the Professional Edition. Munoz said Ability Office will be initially offered to ICAP members for free for one year. By then, ICAP and the local distributor would already have come up with a discount plan that will have users pay a much lower license fee to continue using the suite. ICAP currently has about 1,600 Internet café chain members nationwide. "Some of our members have been struggling with the high cost of starting up and operating their business and much of their expenses go to acquiring MS Office. ICAP wants its members to move to a cheaper alternative that offers nearly the same features as the more expensive one [MS Office]," Munoz said. |
http://services.inq7.net/express/06/08/01/html_output/xmlhtml/20060731-12731-xml.html
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