To upgrade or not.Q: I have a small office with two PCs running Microsoft Office Microsoft's primary desktop applications for Windows and Mac. Depending on the package, it includes some combination of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and Outlook along with various Internet and other utilities. 97. Should I upgrade to Office 2000? --K. Murray, Houston A: Of course, the answer is, it depends. There are a number of things to consider before upgrading any software. The most important s does it still do everything you need it to? This s especially true of an expensive office suite like Office 2000 that comes in many different flavors and price points. The Standard version ($499 new user, $209 upgrade)includes Microsoft Word A full-featured word processing program for Windows and the Macintosh from Microsoft. Included in the Microsoft application suite, it is a sophisticated program with rudimentary desktop publishing capabilities that has become the most widely used word processing application on the market. , Excel. Outlook and PowerPoint. The Small Business version ($499 new user, $209 upgrade) adds Publisher and Small Biz Tools to the mix. If you want Microsoft Access A database program for Windows, available separately or included in the Microsoft Office suite. Access is programmable using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Access can read Paradox, dBASE and Btrieve files, and using ODBC, Microsoft SQL Server, SYBASE SQL Server and Oracle data. , you'll need the Professional version ($599 new user. $309 upgrade), and the Premium version ($799 new user, $399 upgrade) gives the full monty (programming, abuse) monty - /mon'tee/ Any program with a ludicrously complex user interface that performs a trivial task. An example would be a menu-driven, button clicking, pulldown, pop-up windows program for listing directories. with Microsoft's HTML editor A low-level Web site authoring tool that is essentially a text editor, specialized for writing HTML code. It assists the HTML author by cataloging all HTML tags and common structures in menus and by being able to catch certain syntax errors. FrontPage and PhotoDraw. While these versions are definitely an improvement over the seemingly seem·ing adj. Apparent; ostensible. n. Outward appearance; semblance. seem  ing·ly adv. ancient Office 97. their main claim to fame is Web integration. The folks at Microsoft seem to believe that you'll soon be using the Web for publishing documents or at the very least managing an Intranet. They've even made Word into a reasonably robust HTML editor. Bottom line: if your business is heavily dependent on working with the Internet, then you may want to shell out the nearly $500 to upgrade both machines in your office. Otherwise. if you're humming along nicely and don't have any real problem with your current suite, here's a piece of advice: if it ain't broke, don't break it. Besides, your next computer, which will probably have a shorter shelf life than your Office suite, will likely have Office 2000 preinstalled, saving you yet another headache. --T.K.M.
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