Psion's integrated software suite for the IBM PC comes under Geof Wheelwright's scrutinising gaze

Psion's Xchange integrated software suite for the IBM PC, Apricot and Sirius micros goes on sale this month. The applications within Xchange are all adaptions of the program sold with the Sinclair QL (see box); a word processor (Quill), a database (Archive), a spreadsheet (Abacus) and a business graphics system going under the name of Easel.

The big difference between the QL packages and the software released this month is the price - £495 for the four modules, though each can be purchased individually for a good deal less (Quill - £175, Abacus - £175, Archive - £250, Easel - £175). But for the serious user, the QL connection will largely by nothing more than an amusing curiosity.

The differences between Xchange and its Microdrive-based forebears will in the end be less important than the differences between Xchange and other integrated software suites such as Ashton-Tate's Framework and Lotus' Symphony.

Psion presents the 'building block' approach for Xchange as a big advantage over other integrated suites, which charge you a big price and give four applications or more all at once - whether you want them all or not. With Xchange you buy new applications as you need them and each new application still works within the Xchange system to exchange data. But you still need 256K before you start using Xchange.

I tested the 0.8 release of the full four-package Xchange suite.

Psion has designed the documentation so that it's both portable and easy to follow - without being inconsequential. It comes in a hard plastic case which has a secret panel in its 'lid' containing the program disks. A nice touch, and one other software manufacturers might consider.

Once you've backed up your disks and installed Xchange, you're greeted with a sign-on menu offering you a choice of tasks in either Quill, Abacus, Archive or Easel.

Once you've picked a task - Quill's word processing, for example - you give the task a name. From then on, you can use Quill in much the same way as any other word processor. This one has on-screen page breaks, automatic on-screen word-count, automatic margin adjust, headers and footers, import/export and more. And if you suddenly decide you want to do something else, say check on information in the spreadsheet, you just hit F6 (function key six) and then ESC (the Escape key) to get back to the sign-on task menu. You then enter the spreadsheet and work with data in it without losing your word processing file.

Xchange's most notable feature is the virtual document system used to store files in memory and on disk. This system organises your file so that it's not only unlimited in size, but can access page 2 quickly as page 200.

There are, however, no on-screen applications windows in Xchange so you can't see a word processed file at the same time as a spreadsheet file. This kind of windowing is available on competitive products such as Symphony and Peachtree's Decision Manager. But Psion revealed that it has held discussions with Microsoft about incorporating the company's Windows operating system with the Xchange software.

Xchange's design apparently fits within the code parameters of Windows and should be able to give Xchange that windowing facility. You still have to pay Microsoft for the Windows software.

The suite's design and documentation is good, but is there really a place for a window-less integrated software suite with the same price-tag as Symphony, Decision Manager and Framework? Xchange also offers fewer applications than most - the average integrated suite offers five, with the fifth generally being a communications package. Psion has, however, promised that the first additional application module for Xchange will be a communications package.

On the plus side, information exchange between the programs is good and the quality of each of the individual applications is high - particularly the word processor.

Psion's apparently confusing price structure does seem to have strategy behind it. The company could even end up being quite flexible with it. Psion says a number of OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) hardware/software bundling deals are in the pipeline, the first of which will be Torch's Graduate for the BBC Micro. Some hardware companies have decided the Perfect range of software isn't so perfect. Psion may well be the next king of bundling.

The QL software and Xchange are similar enough to look like twins - but fraternal, rather than identical.

The crucial difference, as far as using the package is concerned, is the task table/exchange facility. Although you can import and export data between packages in Quill, you must do it 'manually' by exporting to an export file from one application, then closing down that application and start up the importing application and import the file. It's slow, but it works in much the same way as the Xchange facility.

What is different is the task table, which gives you the ability to switch between several different tasks all running in the machine at once. In the QL software, you can run only one task at once and cannot switch between applications without closing down and reloading.

In their individual operation, however, the applications work in exactly the same way and having used the QL packages I didn't even read the manuals to get the Xchange software going.

In one of the provisional IBM versions of the software, some of the menus still referred to QL keys instead of IBM keys - but all those references were removed in the final version.

Features: 4/5
Documentation: 4/5
Performance: 3/5
Overall Value: 3/5