Lotus Development Corp and Microsoft Corp are stirring up a personal computer software price war, Newsbytes reports. They have slashed their prices in Japan, apparently in reaction to the current price war among the hardware manufacturers. Lotus cut the price of Macintosh software for the first time. The price of 1-2-3 R1.1J, a Japanese version of 1-2-3 for the Macintosh, was cut to $530 from $890. The MS-DOS version of 1-2-3 and Freelance $540 from $911, and notebook version of 1-2-3 is now sold at only $160, down from $350. Lotus is also planning to lower prices of Windows versions of 1-2-3, Freelance, and Windows Office. Meanwhile, Microsoft has started a trade-in campaign for its Word 5.0. It retails for $540, but users of other word processors can have it for $230. Compaq Computer Corp and Dell Computer Corp triggered the Japanese price war in hardware.
