PlanMaker For Pocket PC Nearing Beta Release

[Ed Hansberry]

<a href="http://www.softmaker.de/pmp_en.htm">http://www.softmaker.de/pmp_en.htm</a><br /><br />From the folks that brought you the popular Word replacement TextMaker comes PlanMaker 2003 for the Pocket PC, a full blown Excel replacement.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/2003/20030907-planmaker.gif" /><br /><br />Key features include:<br /><br />• Powerful, yet easy-to-use multi-platform spreadsheet<br />• Available for Windows, Pocket PCs, and Linux<br />• Excellent Microsoft Excel 5.0, 95, 97, 2000, XP, and 2003 filter<br />• Over 300 worksheet functions<br />• Powerful chart module<br />• Create drawings, flowcharts, etc. right inside your worksheets<br />• Outliner<br />• Password protection of worksheets/workbooks/whole documents<br />• Unlimited undo/redo<br />• Spell-checker for 16 languages, hyphenation (within text frames) in 36 languages<br /><br />Beta testing will begin shortly. Pricing has not yet been set. There will be a version for Windows and Linux users as well.

[EvilOne]

«SoftMaker is currently developing a powerful, yet easy-to-use spreadsheet named PlanMaker 2003. Retail price will be in the US$ 50/EUR 60 range.»

Wow that seems a little pricey, no? I hope that this price is just NOT for the PDA version... If so, then forget it, I'll cotinue to deal with the built in PocketExel.

[Janak Parekh]

Actually, I'd expect it to cost that much; it looks like a full-featured desktop-equivalent piece of software. It's not that simple to create a tool that lets you do professional 3D charts on the Pocket PC, you know. ;)

--janak

[SandersP]

uh, uh uh......

must have that NOW!

[dlangton]

Wow that seems a little pricey, no? I hope that this price is just NOT for the PDA version... If so, then forget it, I'll cotinue to deal with the built in PocketExel

If it's as good as Textmaker, it's worth every penny.

[Snail]

:multi:

At Last! A spreadsheet that's a bit more than a grown up calculator! I'm at the front of the queue...

[ricksfiona]

Yeah, I got an e-mail from them yesterday. Very good. Textmaker is super cool. I wish I was better at fully exploiting Excel to make this a must have purchase.

[Rok]

Great!

Yet another 50 $ spent to get the features that should've been bundled in the original package in the first place! :devilboy:

I applaud SoftMaker for their fantastic apps. It's MS I hold grudge against.

Cheers,
Rok

[Janak Parekh]

Yet another 50 $ spent to get the features that should've been bundled in the original package in the first place! :devilboy:
I don't know about this; Pocket Excel is fairly anemic, but this is beyond and above what I feel a freely-bundled version should include. A lot of labor goes into software like this.

--janak

[Ed Hansberry]

Great!

Yet another 50 $ spent to get the features that should've been bundled in the original package in the first place! :devilboy:

I applaud SoftMaker for their fantastic apps. It's MS I hold grudge against.

The Pocket apps on the PPC were never meant to be full featured versions. Believe it or not, except for tables in Word perhaps, they both fulfil most of the features that people actually use on the desktop. I still get spreadsheets that instead of using =sum() someone adds everything up with +A1+A2+A3+A4...+A10, or worse, just retpe +35+56+68+98..+69 in the total row.

It is great there are third parties taking care of the deficits. I'm glad they are in fact. When a bug is found, it is far more likely that it will be fixed without having to wait for an OS update or worse, buy a new device. I find myself using less and less of what comes with the PPC and just using it as a great platform. I would say WMP is is the only app that fulfills my needs, and I still supplement it with CEPlaylist for playlist management.

[Duncan]

must have that NOW!If it's as good as Textmaker, it's worth every penny.At Last! A spreadsheet that's a bit more than a grown up calculator! I'm at the front of the queue...I applaud SoftMaker for their fantastic apps.

Agreed x 4!!!! BTW - if you haven't tried the desktop version (still $/€15 off until 10 Sept) I really would! I am a hardened MS Office fan but I recommend TextMaker to all the newbie PC people I come across as it is a great PC app as well...

On the price - people - either you want real full powered office apps on your Pocket PC - in which case it costs in terms of time and development (not least of which making desktop stuff happen in a PPC environment - all those workarounds!!! 8O) and will have a desktop app type price - or - you don't want all that power in which case MS have given you some free stuff. Still we get people who think that if it looks small it should be cheap...! :roll:

[SassKwatch]

Key features include:

• Outliner
Wonder what they mean by that.(??)

[SoftMaker]

Key features include:

• Outliner
Wonder what they mean by that.(??)
The ability to dynamically collapse and expand multiple rows and/or columns, like in Excel. Even hierarchically.

Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH

[BTS]

I'm curious to see how it compares with SpreadCE. Other than the really fancy graphs I find SpreadCE does some pretty cool stuff - including CSV exports that you can use with TextMaker.

[Ed Hansberry]

Key features include:

• Outliner
Wonder what they mean by that.(??)
The ability to dynamically collapse and expand multiple rows and/or columns, like in Excel. Even hierarchically.
I presume you mean the Data|Group and Outline menu in Excel. :)

[Rok]

this is beyond and above what I feel a freely-bundled version should include. A lot of labor goes into software like this.

Absolutely.

However, there are no alternatives if you find Pocket Word (and now, Pocket Excel), lacking. At least Palm bundles Documents To Go with the hardware. And while certainly not on a par with TextMaker (not even close), it's definitely miles ahead of what MS provides.

I find Pocket Word mostly useless and I would gladly buy a 3rd party app that does a better job. But the price is a little steep. I'm sure it's worth the price to someone who's using it daily; it isn't to someone such as myself that would only use it occasionaly.

Now if they sold both apps together for, say, 60 $, that would be a different story altogether.

Cheers,
Rok

[huangzhinong]

Until they have a lite version pricing at $19.99 or below, I don't think they can sell it well.

Same as textmaker, Our class has more than 40 PPC, none of them has textmaker installed. The main reason is the price. A reasonable price is one of main factors for a software success. Snails is so successful, why, the reason is the $9.99 affordable price, although the game itself is so-so.

PlanMaker really worth $50? Kill me.

[Fzara]

I would never pay $50 for thir app. Perhaps if it was $30 I would re-consider.

[petvas]

Textmaker might be expensive but it is certainly worth it! Planmaker has the same potential...

[Rok]

Textmaker might be expensive but it is certainly worth it
That is very relative. See my post above. For somebody who's not using it daily and/or isn't making money with his writing, it clearly isn't worth the price, and is also very much out of must-have-because-it's-cool price range (for most of geeks like me anyway).

Cheers,
Rok

[Paragon]

Textmaker might be expensive but it is certainly worth it
That is very relative. See my post above. For somebody who's not using it daily and/or isn't making money with his writing, it clearly isn't worth the price, and is also very much out of must-have-because-it's-cool price range (for most of geeks like me anyway).

Cheers,
Rok

....and that is why MS created Pocket Excel, and Word. For a great many people the MS pocket versions are all they need.

For those questioning why MS never included full featured apps like these, ask yourself this.....are you willing to give up about 15MB of ROM space, which is what these two apps. Are you willing to pay as much as $100.00 more for a Pocket PC because it has the full version of Word, and Excel. That is what these two apps are. Full versions! At a lower cost than you can by the MS equivalent for. I dont think many of us are. But now for those who are willing they now have the opportunity. :)

Dave

[Jonathan1]

Yet another 50 $ spent to get the features that should've been bundled in the original package in the first place! :devilboy:
I don't know about this; Pocket Excel is fairly anemic, but this is beyond and above what I feel a freely-bundled version should include. A lot of labor goes into software like this.

--janak
How many employees are at Softmaker? How many employees are assigned to the Pocket PC dev team? How many years has Pocket Office stayed virtually unchanged? How many years did it take Softmaker to create these word/excel clones? In terms of shear resources MS has to have Softmaker beat into the ground. The labor aspect doesn't fly anymore. I still believe that it would be possible to turn the project of Pocket Office over to the MS Office dev team and let them go nuts with the guidelines of it can only be X KB/MB in size.


Anyways in terms of the software and its price. What about those of us that don't need every bell and whistle in Excel\Word but want more functionality then what's found in the POS that ships with Pocket PC? This product may be great for business users that can afford to purchase 100 licenses for their office and use every feature and function in Word/Excel but for people who would only use this on an occasional basis this is a total rip-off. To many a Pocket PC is a supplement not a replacement. Personally 80% of my time is spent on Office XP on the desktop. The rest in the POS word\excel that came with Pocket PC. I'm NOT spending 50$ on a piece of software that I use occasionally. Period. Softmaker knows they can get away with this price because there is NO competition. You get someone else with a product that has even half of the features of Textmaker and Planmaker and is half the price and watch their price drop like a rock.
I have no issues with the quality of the software. I’ve tried the demo of Textmaker. It’s a fantastic product but I can’t stand price gouging and that, IMHO, is what I feel Softmaker is doing.

[PR.]

Yet another 50 $ spent to get the features that should've been bundled in the original package in the first place! :devilboy:
I don't know about this; Pocket Excel is fairly anemic, but this is beyond and above what I feel a freely-bundled version should include. A lot of labor goes into software like this.

--janak
How many employees are at Softmaker? How many employees are assigned to the Pocket PC dev team? How many years has Pocket Office stayed virtually unchanged? How many years did it take Softmaker to create these word/excel clones? In terms of shear resources MS has to have Softmaker beat into the ground. The labor aspect doesn't fly anymore. I still believe that it would be possible to turn the project of Pocket Office over to the MS Office dev team and let them go nuts with the guidelines of it can only be X KB/MB in size.


Anyways in terms of the software and its price. What about those of us that don't need every bell and whistle in Excel\Word but want more functionality then what's found in the POS that ships with Pocket PC? This product may be great for business users that can afford to purchase 100 licenses for their office and use every feature and function in Word/Excel but for people who would only use this on an occasional basis this is a total rip-off. To many a Pocket PC is a supplement not a replacement. Personally 80% of my time is spent on Office XP on the desktop. The rest in the POS word\excel that came with Pocket PC. I'm NOT spending 50$ on a piece of software that I use occasionally. Period. Softmaker knows they can get away with this price because there is NO competition. You get someone else with a product that has even half of the features of Textmaker and Planmaker and is half the price and watch their price drop like a rock.
I have no issues with the quality of the software. I’ve tried the demo of Textmaker. It’s a fantastic product but I can’t stand price gouging and that, IMHO, is what I feel Softmaker is doing.

But surely MS Office for the desktop is dng the exact same thing, infact office is worse as XP was merely an upgrade to 2000 which was an upgrade to 97 which was an upgrade to 95, there hasn't been anything revolutionary for years, and I bet you spent more than 60$ on them!

Personally I like textmaker ad think it was worth the special offer price I paid for it and the desktop version.

I would say I am unlikely to get this program as I am not a frequent Excel user. :)

[guinness]

Would it be possible for Softmaker to make light versions of their office apps? Say a version of Textmaker that allows the user to insert pics and tables, that's what most of the Palm word processors do and they charge $30, which is more reasonable for most users. I don't think most people use all the features of Word either, just make a version that includes the most common tools.

[Rob Alexander]

However, there are no alternatives if you find Pocket Word (and now, Pocket Excel), lacking. At least Palm bundles Documents To Go with the hardware. And while certainly not on a par with TextMaker (not even close), it's definitely miles ahead of what MS provides.

There have been alternatives for Excel since the HPC days. There's one called SpreadCE that's quite nice. I've used PTab (http://www.z4soft.com/) since I moved from my Velo1 to my Casio E-11, and it's everything I could want in a PPC spreadsheet. Other than that fancy 3D graph, I don't see much listed for Planmaker that PTab hasn't done for years. Of course, for $40, it's not all that cheap either, but they've never charged me since that original purchase for moving to the Palm-sized PC (different CPU) or on to the Pocket PC... and it works fine on PPC 2003 without a new version.

Anyway, I wonder if there's really a market out there, since no one ever seems very enthused by the existing alternatives, or if for most people Pocket Excel is good enough.

[Janak Parekh]

How many employees are at Softmaker? How many employees are assigned to the Pocket PC dev team? How many years has Pocket Office stayed virtually unchanged? How many years did it take Softmaker to create these word/excel clones? In terms of shear resources MS has to have Softmaker beat into the ground. The labor aspect doesn't fly anymore. I still believe that it would be possible to turn the project of Pocket Office over to the MS Office dev team and let them go nuts with the guidelines of it can only be X KB/MB in size.
OK, but that doesn't argue with my point that SoftMaker is a relatively small company, and charging $50 for a full-featured product is not unreasonable, IMHO, for a product that's not going to get the widespread attention that Office does.

Anyways in terms of the software and its price. What about those of us that don't need every bell and whistle in Excel\Word but want more functionality then what's found in the POS that ships with Pocket PC?
As someone suggested, maybe a "lite" equivalent of SoftMaker apps is what you're looking for. However, to say that SoftMaker is gouging for full-featured applications -- products that might cost $149 or more if you buy the MS version -- doesn't make any sense.

You get someone else with a product that has even half of the features of Textmaker and Planmaker and is half the price and watch their price drop like a rock.
Well, SpreadCE is out there, isn't it? I believe it costs $20. We'll see if SoftMaker drops their price in response to an already-existing product.

--janak

[Rob Alexander]

Would it be possible for Softmaker to make light versions of their office apps? Say a version of Textmaker that allows the user to insert pics and tables, that's what most of the Palm word processors do and they charge $30, which is more reasonable for most users. I don't think most people use all the features of Word either, just make a version that includes the most common tools.

I wish they did. I bought Textmaker, but didn't put it back on after buying my iPaq 2215. It was just too big for the time I spent using it, and it did so much more than I needed that it always seemed like a waste. It was also quite slow on PPC 2002. The thing is that I need something better than Pocket Word, and something that will allow a document to make an intact round-trip from desktop to PPC to desktop, but I don't need all the stuff Textmaker has... just some of it.

[lapchinj]

I really don't need anything more than Pocket Excel so I'll pass on that but there are some features in TextMaker that I needed such as not loosing the doc formatting when passing files back and forth from PDA to PC and back. That was definitely worth the price enven though it was a little too high. But I bought it when they had a sale last December so that was a good deal.

.....are you willing to give up about 15MB of ROM space... Dave
I wouldn't think anyone could load that much stuff into memory and have room to work. I have TextMaker loaded on a CF card since I bought it and it works great.

Would it be possible for Softmaker to make light versions ….
I guess Pocket Word could be called the lite version of TextMaker (you can't get any more lite than that).

Jeff-

[185driver]

There have been alternatives for Excel since the HPC days. There's one called SpreadCE that's quite nice. I've used PTab (http://www.z4soft.com/) since I moved from my Velo1 to my Casio E-11, and it's everything I could want in a PPC spreadsheet. Other than that fancy 3D graph, I don't see much listed for Planmaker that PTab hasn't done for years. Of course, for $40, it's not all that cheap either, but they've never charged me since that original purchase for moving to the Palm-sized PC (different CPU) or on to the Pocket PC... and it works fine on PPC 2003 without a new version.

Absolutely. I've been an avid SpreadCE ($20 with free updates for life) user for two years now. Functions galore, various levels of protection, a fairly complete macro language, a toolbox of controls including combo boxes, command buttons, spinners, radio buttons, etc., simple charting and display controls (hide toolbars or scroll bars) the works. Just no fancy charts. Stephen Bye has done a great job of creating a truly full-featured spreadsheet program.

One caveat, the trial version of SpreadCE does not have all the features included in the production version.

$50 for PlanMaker? I don't think so.

[gtarent]

I can't believe you guys are whining about the price... if its too high don't buy it. I think corvettes are ridiculously priced for what you get, but I don't expect them to drop the price to be more inline with what my grand prix cost.

[QYV]

Would it be possible for Softmaker to make light versions of their office apps? Say a version of Textmaker that allows the user to insert pics and tables, that's what most of the Palm word processors do and they charge $30, which is more reasonable for most users. I don't think most people use all the features of Word either, just make a version that includes the most common tools.

This is exactly my problem. I'd like a little more functionality than Pocket Word - maybe even just formatting-retention - in a relatively small and lightweight (and inexpensive) app. Pocket Word is by far my most-used program, and has been since I first got joined the Pocket PC world with an iPAQ 3630 almost three years ago. And I've been waiting for a good replacement app for Pocket Word pretty much that entire time. I've installed the Textmaker demo several times to try and convince myself it was worth the price, and it was just too complex and slow to be worth it for me.

Now, let me be clear: for what you get, I agree that $50 is a reasonable price. And if I used features like tables and footnotes, I'm almost certain I would have cheerfully paid that price long ago. But I don't want to pay for a lot of functionality that I'm not using, and so even though I'm a huge Pocket Word user - and thus, the target market of the app - I'm not going to purchase Textmaker.

Martin, it's great that you come here and look at the feedback from us diehard users. Please consider a "lite" version of Textmaker which would have a reduced footprint and feature set with a correspondingly lower price (perhaps $20-$30). If it doesn't make financial sense for your company, I guess there's nothing that can be done, but I have to believe that such a version would sell significantly more copies than the current implementation of Textmaker, which would seem to make it an interesting proposition for you.

[CESkins]

Please consider a "lite" version of Textmaker which would have a reduced footprint and feature set with a correspondingly lower price (perhaps $20-$30)...I have to believe that such a version would sell significantly more copies than the current implementation of Textmaker, which would seem to make it an interesting proposition for you.
A lite version of Textmaker would be great for the masses who need more functionality on their PDA for working with text documents than Pocket Word provides but don't want to have a MS Word clone. I personally am looking forward to PlamMaker as I use Excel a great deal for a number of different things. However, the one thing that is lacking in both PlanMaker and TextMaker is the ability of the PocPC versions to print. Right now I have to go through a number of inconvenient steps to print Textmaker documents directly from my PDA. If printing were added as a feature, I think that would go some distance towards justifying a higher pricetag.

[Wasp]

I am an engineer. I used to do a fair amount of programming in Basic, Fortran, and TurboPascal, but find that 98% of the time, I can get the results on a spreadsheet and it is alot faster. So for me, a more powerful spreadsheet isn't a luxury, it is a necessity. Plus, like a previous member, I really like the fact that my macros and more complicated equations aren't stripped by the conversion utility. To plagarize an MC commercial, priceless. Fifty or sixty dollars is steep, but to me is not unreasonable if it does as it says. Let the market rule. Those that need the capability will pay for it; those that don't, won't. 8)

[dh]

I think that you either need this kind of app or you don't.
I have Excel on my desktop and I use it once a mouth for an expense report. i therefore am not really in the target market for this product.

Having said that, I think it is great that Softmaker is bringing this kind of functionality to the PPC. I don't believe it's Microsoft's job to include this kind of product with the OS anymore than you get office included with Windows.

I would like to see MS make a real Office suite to compete with Softmaker, but its probably not in there best interest to make PPCs into real laptop replacements.

Nice one Softmaker, I've been critical of you at times, but it's developers like you and a few others that keep the life in this platform.

[JonnoB]

I don't believe it's Microsoft's job to include this kind of product with the OS anymore than you get office included with Windows.



These look like VERY functional and useful apps. I do not understand the complaints on the price. Although not as powerful as Office, these apps are getting pretty close. Considering that Office is $300-700 after economies of scale and years of sales history, I don't think that $50 is out of line for a Pocket PC office type suite.

[Thinkingmandavid]

MMM, I am not about the price, I can understand if the price is too much for some. 50?? for software for my ppc, sure it is steep...I get the feeling their market are those who need all the functionality that the software provides. I personally think a better choice is to take a shot at ALL ppc users. This is one of those things like when dvd's first came out. Too expensive, but as time went by they dropped the price. So it seems to be with this software. Out of curiosity, has anyone contacted them to find out what input they may have on the pricing? I think it would be good if we could hear it from their point of view. I agree that MS does not put enought into the existing word and excel. Then as was mentioned earlier, how much memory do you want to use on that. A good point was made concerning MS having so much labor resource.

[cribbagewiz]

I think that $50 would be reasonable if the entire suite came for that price, but $50 per app is WAY too much. Price is the primary reason I will never buy MS Office - it just isn't worth $200 for those apps. Not when OpenOffice or other cheaper or free alternatives are out there.

That said, I will clarify that I am talking about for HOME use. Businesses are at the mercy of MS or Lotus, etc. and will likely always be so.

My two cents...

Cribbagewiz
Dell Axim X5 (400MHz)
Lexar 256MB SD
SMC2542W CF WiFi

[Ed Hansberry]

Businesses are at the mercy of MS or Lotus, etc.
Lotus? Is my calendar messed up? I thought it was 2003, not 1993. :wink: :lol:

[SassKwatch]

This whole debate about pricing and the requests for a 'Lite' version of both Text/Planmaker bring me back to a question I've asked periodically for years even in relation to desktop s/w.....

Would it not make sense for developers working on packages that potentially offer a *WIDE* range of features to offer 'modular' versions of their products? I.e., for a certain base price you get a basic feature set. Want more features....here purchase this 'module' (plugin?) for X more dollars.

I use Word a fair amount at work.....and Excel even more. But as much as I use either, I barely scratch the surface of all the 'features' that are available in either. So, all those additional features just wind up being 'bloat' for me.....in both purchase expense and resources consumed on my machine. E.g., how many Excel users actually use things like 'Formula Auditing', 'Goal Seek', 'Online Collaboration' and even 'Pivot Tables' (for which I have a couple specific needs, but it seems like hardly anyone else uses).

*IF* I'm right about this 'feature bloat', would it not make sense to pare down the basic package and offer 'modules' for those who *need* them and are willing to spend the $$. And if it holds true for desktop versions of these type products, by simple extension it would seem to apply to PPC versions as well.

The concept is certainly not without precedent. Look at Photoshop. Though it has a pretty broad feature set right out of the box, has anyone ever tried to count the number of 'Plugins' that are available for it. It amazes the heck out of me.....if noone else.

I can't believe I'm the only one who's ever proposed this, so assume there is some technical complication or financial rationale from a developer perspective. But whenever I've put forth the question in the past, I've always received answers that sounded somewhat dubious.

[Ed Hansberry]

Would it not make sense for developers working on packages that potentially offer a *WIDE* range of features to offer 'modular' versions of their products? I.e., for a certain base price you get a basic feature set. Want more features....here purchase this 'module' (plugin?) for X more dollars.
Lotus tried this with a modular version of Lotus 1-2-3 before IBM purchased them. It was a colossal flop that didn't make it past the first few beta stages. The feedback was horrible. To make sure the app had enough code to support the basic functionality of spreadsheets being shared and emailed, it turned out that beyond the spell checker and a few other finishing touches, you pretty much had to include the whole thing lest a recepient get a spreadsheet that meant nothing to them because they didn't have the scenario module, or the chart module, or the consolidation module, or the query module, or the ...

Plus, people felt like they were being charged for features they felt should be in the core package.

[SassKwatch]

Lotus tried this with a modular version of Lotus 1-2-3 before IBM purchased them. It was a colossal flop that didn't make it past the first few beta stages. The feedback was horrible.

Plus, people felt like they were being charged for features they felt should be in the core package.

Thanks! That's by far the most logical rationale I've heard why it wouldn't work...at least for these type apps.