PC EXPO, New York -- June 20, 1995 -- Claris Corporation today announced ClarisImpact 2.0, bringing Windows and Macintosh users the broadest range of quality business graphics for all their charting and diagraming needs. ClarisImpact 2.0 is in full beta-testing and on schedule to ship to U.S. resellers in August with a suggested retail price (SRP) of $129.
ClarisImpact 2.0 lets users automatically create connected diagrams (organizational charts, flow charts, computer diagrams, brainstorm charts, total quality management charts and more), project time lines, calendars, data charts, and freeform graphics in one easy-to-use application. ClarisImpact 2.0 for Windows is a 32-bit application ready for Windows 95, and the Macintosh version is native for Power Macintosh, providing great performance on both systems.
"ClarisImpact 2.0 will lead the business diagraming category for ease-of-use, breadth of chart types, speed of task completion, and cross-platform compatibility," said Guerrino De Luca, president of Claris. "We're very excited to be the only cross-platform charting solution for our many customers who work in mixed computing environments.
New to ClarisImpact 2.0 are brand-new styles providing users with professionally designed art for creating the best looking graphics in color or black and white, whether in text-based reports, on-screen presentations or overhead transparencies.
Also new to ClarisImpact 2.0 is DataDraw, which instantly creates graphics from any tab or comma separated data in a database or spreadsheet. For example, ClarisImpact 2.0 can take records from a human resources database and automatically generate an organizational chart. Or a spreadsheet used for managing project dates can be instantly turned into a time line for at-a-glance updates. ClarisImpact 2.0 will ship with DataDraw templates for FileMaker Pro databases and Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to automate the process.
ClarisImpact 2.0: Easier, faster than drag-and-drop
ClarisImpact 2.0 works by using a 3-clicks and you're done approach to creating new business charts and diagrams. One mouse click for selecting the graphic the user wants to create, another click to choose a great-looking style, and a third click to complete the graphic. The user can then further edit or add data to the graphic.
ClarisImpact 2.0 provides an immense productivity boost from the drag and drop process offered by other business charting and diagraming applications. In those applications, the user must drag each component of a graphic (such as the boxes and connectors of an organizational chart) onto the page, one at a time. Editing and tweaking the graphic can mean starting over. With ClarisImpact, global editing is as simple as choosing a different style. Move, edit or delete a single chart component, and ClarisImpact automatically reconnects and spaces the graphic.
Claris challenge: Compare ClarisImpact and VISIO
As with all Claris products, usability testing played a big part in creating ClarisImpact. But Claris went even further, and tested ClarisImpact against current Windows category leader, VISIO 3.0. ClarisImpact 1.0 and VISIO 3.0 users, and non-users, were tested on both products. The results were clear: ClarisImpact 2.0 was overwhelmingly rated easiest to use by test subjects and was, by far, the most preferred application chosen by test subjects.
"We did the internal competitive usability testing to improve ClarisImpact and encourage others to compare ClarisImpact 2.0 against the competition," said
Chris Nalls, product manager for ClarisImpact. "We know we have a better solution."
The tasks were real world in nature, and included creating and editing organizational charts, project time lines and flow charts. A complete summary of the usability test results is available from Claris Public Relations .
A compatible add-on for suite users
ClarisImpact 2.0 is a perfect add-on to suite offerings, such as Microsoft Office. Its built-in XTND translation engine allows for importing most major application formats, including several versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect and any text or tab and comma-separated data. And ClarisImpact 2.0 can import or export standard Windows and Macintosh graphics formats as well.
For companies or users who are not suite-based, ClarisImpact provides presentation functionality tightly integrated with the charting and diagraming features. For computer slide shows, over 50 transition effects such as fades, wipes and dissolves, a light table for easy rearranging of slides, an integrated outliner and great background templates for color, black and white and transparencies make communicating easy. A full-featured word processing environment makes it easy to create text-based documents with compelling charts and diagrams.
ClarisImpact 2.0 pricing and availability
ClarisImpact 2.0 is scheduled to ship in August for both Windows and Macintosh (and native for Power Macintosh) for a suggested retail price (SRP) of $129, with an anticipated street price around $99. Upgrades are $59; trade-ups from other graphics products, FileMaker Pro and ClarisWorks are $69.