If you lack confidence in your writing skills, WhiteSmoke General Writing 2009 may prove to be a boon. And General Writing stays just the right side of overpriced. But as with all such tools, caveats apply — don't rely on WhiteSmoke alone to make sure your copy is pristine.

For anyone who wants to revise documents, spreadsheets or presentations on the go, without needing to carry a laptop, Quickoffice Premier 5.0 could be just the ticket, while anyone frustrated with the (very!) basic Nokia S60 diary should take a look at the same publisher's Quickcalendar.

For light users with even a passing knowledge of Microsoft Office, Ashampoo Office 2008 will be a decent buy that's familiar and easy to use (just as well, given the lack of documentation). In our tests we encountered no compatibility issues. But although $103 is a lot less than MS Office 2007's retail price of $690, similar products such as Star Office 8.0 ($69.95) are much less still. And if you're in the market for an inexpensive, stripped down productivity suite, OpenOffice.org and Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations are so cheap they're, well, free.

Zoho CRM is the most affordable hosted CRM solution on the market. The solution lacks a number of enterprise requirements including integration hooks, time-based escalation triggers, queued workflow and document management, but has much to offer SMBs. Highlights include an intuitive GUI, customisable dashboards, field-level security, rules-based task assignment, and easy-to-share reports. Initial configuration is a grind.

Suitable for occasional use. LogMeIn also allows you to view a personal email archived in your Outlook folder.

With its slightly unfriendly user interface, GoToMyPC is best for those that wish to work remotely but don't need to share files with others. The service is useful for remote troubleshooting.

The trade-off for Jarte's small footprint and shallow learning curve is a dearth of features. A paid-for version, Jarte Plus, offers more, such as automatic spelling correction, automatic outlines, the ability to save clipboard cuttings for future use and support for independent user profiles, which Jarte calls "personalities".

Perhaps we've been spoiled. There are so many great Web services solutions out there -- most of them free like Microsoft Office Live Workspaces -- that our expectations keep getting nudged higher and higher. And with Live Documents just around the corner, it's hard to get excited about a technically inferior solution that's late to the party.

Google Docs' presentation tool is, ultimately, a rough draft that thoroughly deserves the beta label. Google reportedly plans to beef up the editing tools, eventually turning Google Docs into a richer environment. Judging from the slow-but-steady progress of Google Docs' word processor and spreadsheet, the presentation features probably won't acquire PowerPoint-crushing sophistication any time soon. That said, Google Docs should become only more useful over the coming months and, in the meantime, a lot of people are going to find it very useful indeed.

Project Server 2007 is not only a worthwhile upgrade to Project Server 2003 from a stand-alone perspective, it also has the capability to change how teams work and get managed when used in combination with SharePoint Server 2007. There's a definite learning curve here for server administrators as well as a meaty planning process, but the benefits of that work can be huge.

OpenOffice.org isn’t as refined as MS Office, but it’s certainly better value for money

This feature packed offering from ScanSoft has something for both beginners and advanced users alike.