Rating: 
Summary: Some great new features, but look before you leap
Review: The newest version of Visio is the first version built completely by Microsoft since the product was acquired. It's a part of the XP family of products and an official member of the Office XP family. Sporting the XP interface it has features that I am excited about: (1) Professional and Technical versions are combined. You get IT and facilities diagrams and wizards in the same package. (2) You can create diagrams that can export properties to XML. The possibilities are endless: exchange product data with suppliers and customers based on your own product's attributes, export bill of materials to ERP systems, manage assets and get control of total cost of ownership and export process model data to other tools. (3) You can directly scan images or download photos from digital cameras into Visio and use the new photo editing tools to enhance or modify the images to suit your needs. (4) Analyze your web site and develop a complete report of all links. A powerful feature is spotting broken links, making this a good tool for your quality assurance group. I do not like the possible "gotchas" in the web link feature. Specifically, When you type a hyperlink in a Microsoft Office XP application (of which this version is a part), it has been reported that the application will alter what you've typed, without notifying you or giving you an opportunity to undo the "correction." Not good. Before making a purchase decision there are issues and factors that you need to consider very carefully. As part of the XP family of products, Visio 2002, like the XP operating system and Office family, will require activation over the Internet once it's been installed. You can bring it up and use it 5 times before activation, but after that it will not work. This is Microsoft's defense against piracy, and at first glance is a sensible scheme. However, if you reinstall it you have to call Microsoft and get instructions. This is NOT a sensible scheme for a number of reasons. First, I travel, and sometimes outside of the country. Calling Redmond is not viable if my system crashes and I need to reload applications. Second, if I want to upgrade my hard drive I cannot simply reinstall this application (or any of the "XP" family applications or operating systems) because when I first activated it there is an entry made in some database somewhere that says this application is already installed and cannot be activated again. The solution is to call and have some unknown drone bypass big brother. What is this going to cause me in lost productivity? If you need the features (and they are compelling) and can live with the possible web link problem and licensing and activation issues, then this is a worthwhile product. Think long and hard about the issues part, though, because it has ramifications that can be much more serious than I've described. On the other hand, perhaps a wave of good sense will descend upon Redmond and they come up with a more workable solution that shows they care about customers and understand stuff like total cost of ownership and the value of productivity. Personally, I am passing this one by (along with the other XP products) until/unless there is a better way to recover from disasters like hard disk crashes or upgrade my system without the barriers that have been placed by the vendor. My productivity and sanity is worth more to me than the new features. You have my opinion and must decide for yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Worst program ever?
Review: This program is NOT a graphics program, it's a flow charting program. If you want a graphics program stick with Adobe, Jasc, or other related products. If you want a comprehensive flow charting program with ease of use, stick with Visio. I've used it for 8 plus years and found to be a valuable business tool. Because Microsoft purchased the product, then bumped the price up by 100%, I'm forced only give it four stars due to the cost.
I bought the orginal program for under $50 when it first came out.
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