Date: Mon, 21 Sep 92 19:51:13 GMT
Subject: Comments on QPro Win/DOS
Newsgroups: comp.apps.spreadsheets
Organization:  Resumix Inc.
Keywords:  Quattro Windows DOS macros
Summary:  The food was great, but seriously..


Here's some personal observations from Borland's introduction of Quattro for
Windows/DOS last Friday:

No expense spared.  Free T-shirts, real food [better than normal catering],
	large projection screens and music afterwards.  Though most of the
	audience were ringers from Borland.

Side-by-side comparisons of Excel 4.0 and QPro/Win.  Obviously QPro now has
	an intuitive object-oriented interface.  Some of the sales hype of
	OOP is pointless, since OOP only helps developers maintain and turn-
	around code.  But Borland has spent real time writing an interface
	that any Windows user will feel at home in less than an hour.
	Also, plenty of Gates-bashing.  Some geeks just wanna have fun.

	The spreadsheets are now "notebooks".  Standard stuff, different
	paradigm -- ignore the non-literate marketing hype.  But graphs are
	now collected in one notebook, so they're easier to organize.

The InterBASE Engine.  Borland announced earlier their InterBASE dbase tech-
	nology on UNIX platforms.  Ashton-Tate developed a global engine to
	work across the network & link applications together.  Borland will
	include links to the InterBASE core in QPro, Paradox and dBase.
	Most likely, it'll find its way into C/C++ as well.  Sort of like
	the Emerald Bay project that was ballyhooed by some other dbase
	company a few years back.

	Do queries with InterBASE!  Makes you want to think why they have
	three separate products instead of integrating into one..

Speedbar:  Their name for icon bars.  But you can program your own buttons
	and call functions if you like.  You have access to virtually any
	function and programming flexibility to do LOTS of neat things.

	I challenged Borland's engineer to make the time updated as a button
	within the SpeedBar, and that consisted of clicking on some functions
	and setting the proper parameters.  NO PROGRAMMING required.  You're
	able to make most things work without knowing how to code macros.

Better graphs!  The one difference Excel traditionally had was it's ability
	to do awesome 3-D graphs.  QPro/Win now matches that.  Graphs no
	longer limited in no. of ranges or points, and viewed/rotated from
	any angle.  Ability to paste in bitmap backgrounds and scaled-to-fit
	images.

	In order to do this, they're provided a core rendering technology
	that functions as presention software also.  Do slide shows with
	fancy transitions and all that, WITHIN QPro.  My dad likes this.

No more stupid QEMM questions.  Just kidding.  You make Windows sort out your
	memory management mess.  Thou shalt really get 8Mb of RAM for good
	performance.  Else slug in molasses time.  But they also ship the DOS
	non-Windows version in the same box.  So whenever you're ready..

Conclusion:  Borland put a gerat deal of thought into this product.  It should
	do very well.  They only complaint is the system requirements which
	more or less force everyone to upgrade to more capable systems.  The
	question is what happens to QPro for DOS now?  Most of the neat features	will only be in the Windows version.

	The ease in which you can create your own buttons and link them to
	objects is unbelievable.  I would buy this just to play with the all
	the programming tools built in to do nifty Windows stuff.  Hey, why
	even bother to introduce SideKick for Windows when you can build the
	same functions into QPro itself?  Hmmmm.

						- Gary M. Lin
						gary@resumix.portal.com

DISCLAIMER:  I'M NOT AN EMPLOYEE OF BORLAND INT'L OR IT'S SUBSIDIARIES, THOUGH
	I'VE SIGNED THE STUPID NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT.  IN FACT, MY COMPANY
	WOULD BE ANNOYED THAT I TOOK TIME OFF FROM WORK TO GO LAST FRIDAY.