by
Leni » Sun Mar 08, 2015 8:01 am
Yes Csaba, you are right.
Unfortunately, i have worked very little with Chemstation Rev.A (we only had it on one machine on my old workplace) but worked extensively with Rev. B and C. It's true that with Rev.A ...the LC and GC software were very different, apart from the design and look, but things got much better with later version (B, C and OpenLab Chemstation Ed.).
From my experience most people i know who
worked with both Chemstration and Empower preferred Chemstation due to it being userfriendlier, a few liked both and very few liked Empower more. Of course, apart from being also question of what you get used to, i also noted (and please, take no offence anyone!) that most users in the industry have no clue on how a software works, on how to properly use any software in general and can barely use simple software like MS Office and Internet Explorer (but are surprisingly good at facebook:P) ... so i think this is why from a regulatory point of view, most prefer Empower...it's programmed in such a way that any user, no matter how little knowledge of computers and software he/she has, can't do anything non-compliant. While Chemstation is able to do anything as properly and as compliantly as Empower (from Rev.B and mostly C upwards) users don't know how to properly use it, they end up saving stuff all over the place etc. and auditors having as little knowledge as users in generally can't explani what happend and they simply conclude "aaaah...this software is not good"
So, I'm sceptical about people who prefer Empower because 99% of the time they either a) have never, or just barely user Chemstation and b) have no idea about the programming behind each one and thus are unable to understand how each functions. All people i know who are good at computers (or even programmers) and have used both software always told me the same thing...Empower is better where you have users who have no clue on how to properly use software, while Chemstation is simple to use but needs some skills (even programming skills) to master.