WordPerfect versus Word

A friend of mine just sent me the following news article, along with the subtitle, "Can we just let this die, geez..."

Novell Antitrust Lawsuit Against Microsoft Revived by Court
Bloomberg Businessweek - May 03, 2011
By Tom Schoenberg

Personally, I find articles like this depressing - not just because they are frivolous lawsuits that do little more than wasting millions of dollars for everyone concerned, but because they send the wrong messages to the business world. Let me explain:

I love quotes that are worded like this: "WordPerfect's share of the word-processing market fell to less than 10 percent in 1996 from almost 50 percent in 1990." This statement is an excerpt from a section in that article which suggests that Microsoft is the bad guy in this situation.

Has anyone ever bothered to consider that whatever happened to WordPerfect occurred because the executive leadership at WordPerfect made a plethora of poor business choices and their applications ceased to be good products? This entire lawsuit reminds me of when Metallica sued Napster over the decline in their album sales - did it ever occur to them (Metallica) that maybe they had passed their prime and perhaps no one wanted to buy their albums anymore?

Here's another question: did anyone else actually try to use WordPerfect for Windows 3.x through Windows 98? Well, I did - because back in my DOS days I was an avid WordPerfect 4.x through 6.x user. So take my word for it, every version of WordPerfect starting from 5.x through 8.x on Windows platforms were simply awful, while at the same time the versions of Word for Windows got better and better.

I can give you several reasons behind this dichotomy, but the primary cause is simple - WordPerfect didn't have a clue how to make a Windows-based product. As the world transitioned from a DOS-based environment to a Windows realm, WordPerfect shipped products that were technologically inferior, way behind schedule, and badly engineered. By the time that the folks at WordPerfect quit wasting money and figured out what they were doing, it was way too late - they owned less than 10% of the market, and the damage was irrevocable.

Here's just one example: instead of leveraging Windows' built-in printing capabilities and investing in better application features and functionality, the people at WordPerfect continued to develop and ship their own printing subsystem, which bypassed the built-in Windows printing features. Even if WordPerfect's alternate printing subsystem had been better, (which I can honestly say from personal experience that it was not), that's not the way that you're supposed to do things in a Windows world, and WordPerfect threw away millions of dollars and countless thousands of man hours on this colossal failure.

Here's another oldie but goodie - WordPerfect bought into the fantasy from the now-defunct Sun Microsystems that Java was the up-and-coming, be-all/end-all of computer languages and the dawn of write-once/run-everywhere software. This was a wonderful theory, and I personally spent some time writing simple applications in Java back in the mid-to-late-1990s because I, too, bought into Sun's hype. (I still wear a Java baseball cap that I got from Sun back in 1996.) But it wasn't long before I, like many others, realized that Java was mostly hype, and writing software in Java was an experience that was more like rewrite-often/debug-everywhere. But I realized my mistake before I had wasted over $400 million on a failed word processing application in Java like WordPerfect did.

But the folks at WordPerfect continued to press on in their self-delusions - all the while falling behind Word, which was now integrating wonderfully with Windows, Microsoft Office, and a host of other applications through technologies like DDE, OLE, and ActiveX. By this point WordPerfect's losses were enormous, then along came Novell, who was already a sinking ship; this was due to the fact that their difficult-to-use and expensive flagship NetWare operating system was taking a serious beating from Windows NT's ease-of-use and significantly reduced barrier-to-entry pricing.

Novell realized that WordPerfect had once been a major cash cow, and I guess they hoped that they could turn around both of these massive sinking ships and get them headed back from the Red Sea into the Black Sea. But Novell's delusions proved to be worse than WordPerfect's, and eventually Novell had to sell WordPerfect to Corel for a pittance just to keep their ship from being dragged under as WordPerfect rocketed toward the bottom in a technology fate that was worse than the demise of the Titanic. And yet, very much like the sinking of the Titanic and the untimely deaths of technology giants like Netscape and Sun Microsystems, WordPerfect's downfall was ultimately caused by a series of gargantuan blunders and the terminal hubris of their leadership, and not by any action on Microsoft's part.

Not that any of this will matter in court - Microsoft will probably still have to shell out a few hundred million dollars in "damages," thereby rewarding former executives at WordPerfect for their incompetence, and reinforcing the message to the business world that just because you're a colossal failure and you ruined the lives of thousands of your loyal employees, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be able to buy a large mansion and luxury yacht by cashing in on the profits of your successful competitors.


Additional Reading

At the time of this writing, Wikipedia has a great write-up on the history of WordPerfect, including blunt analysis of WordPerfect's many failures. But pages on Wikipedia are subject to change, and they're not always accurate.

With that in mind, you might want to take a look at the book titled Almost Perfect by W. E. Peterson, who had been one of the senior executives at WordPerfect. Sometimes it's nice to have an insider's view of the breakdown and failure.

Outlook Macro: Export Appointments to TSV File

Using this Outlook VBA Macro

Over the years, I had noticed that I had appointments from years ago stuck in my calendar, so I wrote this Outlook VBA Macro to export a list of all my appointments to a tab-separated (TSV) file so that I could open it in Microsoft Excel and analyze all of my appointments. (After writing this macro, I wrote my Delete Old Appointments macro to delete old appointments.)

Outlook VBA Macro Example Code

Sub ExportAppointmentsToTsvFile()

Dim objOutlook As Outlook.Application
Dim objNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim objAppointement As Outlook.AppointmentItem
Dim objNetwork As Object
Dim objFSO As Object
Dim objFile As Object
Dim strUserName As String

Set objOutlook = Application
Set objNamespace = objOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set objFolder = objNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderCalendar)

Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")

strUserName = objNetwork.UserName

If InStr(strUserName, "\") = 0 Then
strUserName = objNetwork.UserDomain & "\" & strUserName
End If

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("c:\outlook-calendar.tsv")

objFile.WriteLine "UserName" & vbTab & _
"AppointementStart" & vbTab & _
"AppointementEnd" & vbTab & _
"AppointementRecurrenceState" & vbTab & _
"AppointementSubject" & vbTab & _
"AppointementSize" & vbTab & _
"AppointementUnRead" & vbTab & _
"AppointementLocation"

For Each objAppointement In objFolder.Items
DoEvents
objFile.WriteLine strUserName & vbTab & _
objAppointement.Start & vbTab & _
objAppointement.End & vbTab & _
objAppointement.RecurrenceState & vbTab & _
objAppointement.Subject & vbTab & _
objAppointement.Size & vbTab & _
objAppointement.UnRead & vbTab & _
objAppointement.Location
Next

MsgBox "Done!"

End Sub

Outlook Macro: Delete Old Appointments

Using this Outlook VBA Macro

Over the years, I had noticed that I had appointments from years ago stuck in my calendar, so I wrote this Outlook VBA Macro to help keep my outlook calendar thinned-out.

Note: This macros deletes appointments and attachments from your Outlook calendar - make sure that you want to do this before running this macro.

By default the macro will:

  • Delete all appointments over a year old (except recurring appointments.)
  • Delete all attachments from 6-month-old appointments.
  • Delete large attachments from 2-month-old appointments.

You can alter these dates by adjusting the appropriate lines in the macro.

Outlook VBA Macro Example Code

Sub DeleteOldAppointments()

Dim objOutlook As Outlook.Application
Dim objNamespace As Outlook.NameSpace
Dim objFolder As Outlook.MAPIFolder
Dim objAppointement As Outlook.AppointmentItem
Dim objAttachment As Outlook.Attachment
Dim objNetwork As Object
Dim lngDeletedAppointements As Long
Dim lngCleanedAppointements As Long
Dim lngCleanedAttachments As Long
Dim blnRestart As Boolean
Dim intDateDiff As Integer

Set objOutlook = Application
Set objNamespace = objOutlook.GetNamespace("MAPI")
Set objFolder = objNamespace.GetDefaultFolder(olFolderCalendar)

Here:

blnRestart = False

For Each objAppointement In objFolder.Items
DoEvents
intDateDiff = DateDiff("d", objAppointement.Start, Now)

' Delete year-old appointments.
If intDateDiff > 365 And objAppointement.RecurrenceState = olApptNotRecurring Then
objAppointement.Delete
lngDeletedAppointements = lngDeletedAppointements + 1
blnRestart = True

' Delete attachments from 6-month-old appointments.
ElseIf intDateDiff > 180 And objAppointement.RecurrenceState = olApptNotRecurring Then
If objAppointement.Attachments.Count > 0 Then
While objAppointement.Attachments.Count > 0
objAppointement.Attachments.Remove 1 Wend
lngCleanedAppointements = lngCleanedAppointements + 1
End If

' Delete large attachments from 60-day-old appointments.
ElseIf intDateDiff > 60 Then
If objAppointement.Attachments.Count > 0 Then
For Each objAttachment In objAppointement.Attachments
If objAttachment.Size > 500000 Then
objAttachment.Delete
lngCleanedAttachments = lngCleanedAttachments + 1
End If
Next
End If
End If
Next

If blnRestart = True Then GoTo Here

MsgBox "Deleted " & lngDeletedAppointements & " appointment(s)." & vbCrLf & _
"Cleaned " & lngCleanedAppointements & " appointment(s)." & vbCrLf & _
"Deleted " & lngCleanedAttachments & " attachment(s)."

End Sub

Access Macro: Export Table/Query To Excel

Using this Access VBA Macro

I wrote this Access VBA Macro for a friend to export an Access table or query to a spreadsheet; it might come in handy. ;-]

Access VBA Macro Example Code

Sub ExportTableOrQueryToExcel()

Const strTitle = "This is my worksheet title"
Const strTableOrQuery = "Query1"

' define the path to the output file
Dim strPath As String
strPath = "C:\TestFile " & _
Year(Now) & Right("0" & _
Month(Now), 2) & Right("0" & _
Day(Now), 2) & ".xls"

' create and open an Excel workbook
Dim objXL As Object
Set objXL = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
objXL.WorkBooks.Add
objXL.Worksheets(1).Name = strTitle
objXL.Visible = False

' delete the extra worksheets
Dim intX As Integer
If objXL.Worksheets.Count > 1 Then
For intX = 2 To objXL.Worksheets.Count
objXL.Worksheets(2).Delete
Next
End If

' open the database
Dim objDB As DAO.Database
Dim objRS As DAO.Recordset
Dim objField As DAO.Field
Set objDB = CurrentDb

' open the query/table
Dim strSQL As String
strSQL = "SELECT * FROM [" & strTableOrQuery & "]"
Set objRS = objDB.OpenRecordset(strSQL)

Dim lngRow As Long
Dim lngCol As Long

If Not objRS.EOF Then

lngRow = 1: lngCol = 1

For Each objField In objRS.Fields
objXL.Worksheets(1).Cells(lngRow, lngCol).Value = objField.Name
lngCol = lngCol + 1
Next

lngRow = lngRow + 1

' loop through the table records
Do While Not objRS.EOF
lngCol = 1
For Each objField In objRS.Fields
objXL.Worksheets(1).Cells(lngRow, lngCol).Value = objField.Value
lngCol = lngCol + 1
Next
lngRow = lngRow + 1
objRS.MoveNext
Loop

End If

objXL.DisplayAlerts = False
objXL.ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs strPath, 46
objXL.ActiveWorkbook.Close

End Sub

Access: Database Schema Report

Summary

This article shows you a Windows Script Host (WSH) application that will create a report based on the schema of an Access Database.


More Information

  1. Open Windows Notepad and copy/paste the WSH code listed below into it.
  2. Modify the strDatabaseFile and strOutputFile constants for your database and desired report name.
  3. Save the file as "DatabaseScema.vbs" to your desktop.
  4. Double-click the WSH file to run it.
    Note: A message box that says "Finished!" will appear when the script has finished executing.
Windows Script Host (WSH) Code
Option Explicit

' --------------------------------------------------
' Define variables and constants
' --------------------------------------------------

Const strDatabaseFile = "MusicStuff.mdb"
Const strOutputFile = "MusicStuff.htm"
Const adSchemaTables = 20

Dim strSQL
Dim strCN
Dim objCN
Dim objRS1
Dim objRS2
Dim objField
Dim intCount
Dim objFSO
Dim objFile

' --------------------------------------------------
' Open the output file
' --------------------------------------------------

Set objFSO = WScript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile(strOutputFile)
objFile.WriteLine "<html><head>" & _
"<style>BODY { font-family:arial,helvetica; }</style>" & _
"</head><body>"
objFile.WriteLine "<h2>Schema Report for &quot;" & _
strDatabaseFile & "&quot;</h2>"

' --------------------------------------------------
' Setup the string array of field type descriptions
' --------------------------------------------------

Dim strColumnTypes(205)

' initialize array

For intCount = 0 To UBound(strColumnTypes)
strColumnTypes(intCount) = "n/a"
Next

' add definitions

strColumnTypes(2) = "Integer"
strColumnTypes(3) = "Long Integer"
strColumnTypes(4) = "Single"
strColumnTypes(5) = "Double"
strColumnTypes(6) = "Currency"
strColumnTypes(11) = "Yes/No"
strColumnTypes(17) = "Byte"
strColumnTypes(72) = "Replication ID"
strColumnTypes(131) = "Decimal"
strColumnTypes(135) = "Date/Time"
strColumnTypes(202) = "Text"
strColumnTypes(203) = "Memo/Hyperlink"
strColumnTypes(205) = "OLE Object"

' --------------------------------------------------
' Open database and schema
' --------------------------------------------------

strCN = "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBQ=" & strDatabaseFile
Set objCN = WScript.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
objCN.Open strCN
Set objRS1 = objCN.OpenSchema(adSchemaTables)

' --------------------------------------------------
' Loop through database schema
' --------------------------------------------------

Do While Not objRS1.EOF
If Left(objRS1("TABLE_NAME"),4) <> "MSys" Then
objFile.WriteLine "<p><big>" & objRS1("TABLE_NAME") & "</big></p>"
objFile.WriteLine "<blockquote><table border=1>" & _
"<tr><th>Field Name</th><th>Data Type</th></tr>"
strSQL = "SELECT * FROM [" & objRS1("TABLE_NAME") & "]"
Set objRS2 = objCN.Execute(strSQL)
For Each objField in objRS2.Fields
objFile.WriteLine "<tr><td>" & objField.Name _
& "</td><td>" & strColumnTypes(objField.Type) & "</td></tr>"
Next
objFile.WriteLine "</table></blockquote>"
End If
objRS1.MoveNext
Loop

' --------------------------------------------------
' Close the output file
' --------------------------------------------------

objFile.WriteLine "</body></html>"

MsgBox "Finished!"