There are several software packages on the market that incorporate data from the electoral roll to allow you to find phone numbers and addresses based on people's names. UK-Info Disk 2002 Version 7 is one such ...

CRM is a popular acronym in the IT press. It stands for "customer relationship management" and explains how companies have to keep close tabs on the way they're dealing with their customers. This has obvious benefits ...

One of the best-selling collections of business applications is Microsoft's Works Suite and it looks as if Corel wants a slice of the action. In the same way that Microsoft combined related but separate applications into ...

Adobe's PDF (portable document format) is a compact and efficient way of distributing product specifications, brochures and other formatted documents. It's convenient because the file size is kept to a minimum, relatively complex page formatting is ...

Communicate (there's supposed to be an exclamation mark at the end of the name, but...) is an all-in-one fax, voice and data messaging system. It is aimed at the home office user who wants the features ...

For the average computer user, Notepad and Wordpad are the only text editors required. But for more demanding users who, for example, need to edit and create HTML code, develop Perl, VisualBasic or C++ programs, or ...

MapPoint is one of the least-known of Microsoft's line-up of office applications, yet it's arguably one of the most interesting, particularly for sales and marketing departments. At its heart is the concept of geographical data mapping. ...

Back when OmniPage was developed and sold by Caere, there was an ongoing battle with Xerox's OCR software. It seemed that a new version of each product was released on a monthly basis, which helps explain ...

For those new to Money, this is a complete personal finance manager, not just a bank account and cash flow organiser. Money organises your savings and investments, and tracks performance with a built-in portfolio manager. You ...

Dragon has developed a reputation for delivering very high accuracy rates for its speech recognition software. However, compared to some of its rivals it has lacked some frills and functionality in its command interface. Version 5 ...

The latest version of Lernout & Hauspie's Power Translator Pro translates foreign letters, reports, e-mail and Web pages into English. Version 7.0 of the software supports six of the world's most widely-used languages including Spanish, German, ...

Once you've downloaded all 65MB of it from the Sun Web site, StarOffice is free of charge. Sun's plan is to encourage companies to standardise on the suite and charge only for technical support and customisation ...

This market-leading office suite can be purchased as a variety of software combinations. The Standard edition reviewed here comprises the latest versions of Word (word processor), Excel (spreadsheet), PowerPoint (presentation graphics) and Outlook (e-mail, contact manager ...

Let's make it clear: SmartSuite does pretty much everything that Microsoft Office 2000 can plus a whole lot more, but costs just the same. The suite includes four business essentials: word processor (Word Pro), spreadsheet (1-2-3), ...

Forget any preconceptions you might have about WordPerfect, once the king of word processors in the days of DOS. Today's WordPerfect Office 2000 is a fresh, fast and very well-featured suite of applications and utilities. And ...

Now you have a third choice between expensive 'office' suites and cheap but under-featured 'works' packages. Ability Office 2000 admirably fills the gap in the market with well-featured and professional-quality programs, all for £50. The suite ...

Serif PagePlus 6.0 is a publishing tool for the home or business. The program has many design shortcuts for the amateur or professional user and excels at making complicated tasks look easy. Despite this, it comes ...

Considerable interest has been shown in the development of the Linux operating system as a viable alternative to Windows in the commercial sector. A substantial range of software is already available for users, but it's only ...

From the number of folk out there using one Sage product or another, you'd think that Sage was the only player in the budget accounting field. It isn't, but at the last count the company had ...

When Lotus originally launched Organizer (or Organiser, if you want to Anglicise the name), users and critics alike were impressed with its interface, which resembled the popular paper-based personal organisers of the time. Five incarnations later, ...