Corel searches for buyer...

[James_F]

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/cnet/stories/993850.htm

:eek2: Not that I have ever used a Corel or Wordperfect product (I used Wordstar during my DOS days :D), but this is sad. Who the heck would even want any of these products?

[Steve Mehs]

I was wondering when this would happen, I used to track Corel's stock, it was always high enough not to get delisted. I did stop using MS Office '97 for a while in favor of Corel, but Office XP rocks and I'd never go back to Corel WordPerfect Office.

[gcutler]

I already owned my office suite seperately so when I purchased my last dell I went for the Corel Suite because it was $15 cheaper than MS Works (the cheapest option available). I wiped the drive as I always do, so I guess I need to install the Corel suite :D Or Maybe I won't :p

[Richard King]

I still use Corel Draw 9 to do my post card mailings for Dish Network. I just haven't seen the need to move on to anything else even though I use a different program (Paint Shop Pro) for photo editing and Draw would probably do the same thing if I would learn to use it for that purpose.

[Bogy]

I've been using Wordperfect of one version or another since 5.0 for DOS (I think). Using Office 8 now. The only reason I can think of for why Wordperfect isn't still the dominant word processor is that other company that bundled it's product in with its OS. I also have Office 2000 on my computer, but rarely use it. My secretary uses Office 97, so I have to convert documents for her to use. WP is much easier for many things. Showed her how to do labels in WP a while back, and she couldn't believe how much simpler it was. But MS has made itself "the standard," even though it isn't "the best." BTW, Presentations is much easer than Powerpoint as well, but I have Office primarily because my kids had to use Powerpoint for school.

[Steve Mehs]

You got that right Bogy, WP is much easier to use then Word for somethings. I took a Desktop Publishing class at school 2 years ago that focused on Word Perfect and Presentations. Labels are much easier to make on WP and it's easier to make brochures on WP. Presentations was a very good program, never got too Much into Quattro Pro though. I did like Corel Office 8 better then Office '97, but with XP, it's going to have to be MS.

[Mark Holtz]

If my memory serves me correctly, WordPerfect was the word processor of choice in the early 1990s. When Novell purchased the company, they paid a huge premium. This was part of their acquisition of several office applications, including Quattro Pro and such. Novell promptly dropped the ball on support, and a few years later, sold the office applications over to Corel who may have bitten off more than it can handle.

Lets also not forget Lotus OfficeSuite. IBM purchased Lotus a few years ago, and once again, dropped the ball.

So, Microsoft Office became de facto standard.

[James_F]

Much like, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Outlook (Sorry gcutler), Microsoft Windows, and Microsoft Bob (http://www.telecommander.com/pics/links/application%20software/microsoft/Microsoft_Bob_1_0/Microsoft_Bob_1_0.htm)... :eek2:

[Steve Mehs]

:lol: I used Bob once, you think MS could have though up a better name for it. That program reminds me of Launch Pad from OS/2

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Z'Loth
If my memory serves me correctly, WordPerfect was the word processor of choice in the early 1990s. When Novell purchased the company, they paid a huge premium. This was part of their acquisition of several office applications, including Quattro Pro and such. Novell promptly dropped the ball on support, and a few years later, sold the office applications over to Corel who may have bitten off more than it can handle.

Lets also not forget Lotus OfficeSuite. IBM purchased Lotus a few years ago, and once again, dropped the ball.

So, Microsoft Office became de facto standard.

Yes in the Days of DOS, 1-2-3 was spreadsheet of champions, Wordprefect was wordprocessor and Harvard Graphics was premier graphics package.

As for IBM, they really only wanted Lotus Notes/Domino (and maybe cc:Mail), since it was a popular groupware package and could be a web server and also worked on many different platforms. IBM got Lotus SmartSuite as part of the package but intentionally let it go by the wayside as it probably never really wanted it. But to be honest, even if IBM had really invested in SmartSuite, it might have been a waste of time anyway... When Lotus was still just a Wholely Owned Subsidiary of IBM, they did try to breathe life into it, but as IBM took over more and more control (and the writing on the walls became apparent) it just withered.

[James_F]

What about Lotus Jazz? I used that on my first Mac years ago... That program was vanquished by Microsoft with their early versions of Word and Excel before there was any notion of a thing called Office...

[The Tophinator]

I hope the CorelDraw Suite survives somehow. I have used it since the first version and like it more than Photoshop. I am now using Suite 10. Buying WordPerfect was their biggest mistake. It has never been the same since the DOS versions and Novell even took a big hit buying it and then selling it to Corel. At one time Corel was the MS of Canada but they made soo many blunders trying new products like WP, Net apps and the nail in the coffin Lenix apps and OS ( they have had many other apps that they added and later dropped in each version of their suites). I don't know if they can survive. If they would have stuck with their graphics programs I belive they would be in a much better situation.

[James_F]

Anyone remember when they tried to move the wordperfect suite to java?

http://www.nwfusion.com/intranet/0120corel.html

[Richard King]

Wow!! All these names are giving me flashbacks. I am currently using Lotus Smart Suite 97 as my bundled software package (yea, it's old, but it still works). The first "bundled" package that I used, circa about 1983(?), was a DOS package called Frameworks from Ashton Tate. It actually had a Windows like feel to it. Not a bad package for it's time. My first windows spreadsheet program was Quatro Pro. I also used a Corel publishing program that I can't recall the name of in the early Windows days. I still use an old (about 1986?) early Windows cad program called Drafix which was a low cost ($400 or so) at the time drafting program that was eventually bought out by Autocad.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Rking401
The first "bundled" package that I used, circa about 1983(?), was a DOS package called Frameworks from Ashton Tate. It actually had a Windows like feel to it. Not a bad package for it's time. My first windows spreadsheet program was Quatro Pro.

Ashton-Tate..., They had some very popular products like Frameworks. But with DBase, they were the premier PC database system people out there. They were hit hardest with Windows and never recovered, eventually being bought by Quattro Pro maker BORLAND. Borland CEO Phillipe Kahn was really interesting (imagine a smoother, european version of Bill Gates). But even Borland bit the dust being unable to compete with MS Office.

If you look at all the SW that really floundered around the time of windows you can pretty much blame it on their belief that OS/2 was going to be the premier OS (Windows 3.0 had not been released at that time and the world was looking at OS/2 as the next step on the PC).

All the SW from Ashton-Tate, Wordperfect (more than just WP), Lotus and Harvard Graphics were being developed for OS/2, all of a sudden Windows 3.0 comes out of no where and takes off, very few apps were available for Win 3.0 so all of a sudden WOrd and Excel become popular. Add the fact that there was a shortage of Windows Developers and you see why it took forever for Ashton-Tate, Wordprefect and others to switch gears and produce a Win3.0 app. And lets just say that the first bunch of Win3.0 apps from these vendors were not exactly stable or even usable.

Lotus had it the right way, they bought Samna corporation who had developed Ami-Pro the Windows Based word processor. They pretty much moved all the Windows developers into developing Windows versions of 1-2-3 and Freelance, etc. At the time it seemed they had dodged the bullet, but MS just slowly ate up more and more market share and here we are today...

[James_F]

Borland is still around. I use Delphi all the time as do millions of programmers around the world. And JBuilder is the best Java IDE out there.

http://www.borland.com

[gcutler]

Originally posted by James_F
Borland is still around. I use Delphi all the time as do millions of programmers around the world. And JBuilder is the best Java IDE out there.

http://www.borland.com

Ok, I thought it went under. I believe it was delisted from NASDAQ a while back (March 99, it is back) and then they sold off Quatro Pro and Paradox to Corel (or something like that), I guess it just fell off my radar with it only producing developer tools. Being a System Admin, those development tools are just Voodoo :p

[Rick_EE]

MS gained its market share by giving MS office 6.0 and later 95 away with nearly every new computer sold in America. '94-'96

[gcutler]

Originally posted by Rick Densing
MS gained its market share by giving MS office 6.0 and later 95 away with nearly every new computer sold in America. '94-'96

that was a big part, but my experiences in corporate america had the dropping of the ball by WP and others adding greatly. Most companies wanted a Windows based Wordprocessor and spreadsheet. For quite a while Word was only major player for a Word Processor (most ignored AMI-Pro until bought by Lotus). So you had some companies that decided that MS was the only way to go. But you had some companies (more the larger than the smaller) that had committed to WP and decided to wait for WP for Windows to appear (assuming that support agreements and such would be maintained). But WP for WIndows was such a terrible product and the fixes never fixed stuff. But after being disappointed again and again the companies were ready to look at others and MS happened to be there ready to give it away.

I wonder if WP and others had not dropped the ball, would MS have been able to slip in so easily???

[James_F]

Maybe, look at the Macintosh... Yes Office on Mac has been driven by the popularity on the windows side, but in the early years Mac Word and Mac Excel really drove how windows ended up working. The product was good and in fact was better than Windows that they were running on top of. Sure WP, WordStar and other might have been able to make the jump, but Office really has been a good product for a long time.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by James_F
Sure WP, WordStar and other might have been able to make the jump, but Office really has been a good product for a long time.

But If corporate america was mostly using Wordperfect, then people are going to try and get that SW installed at home so they can do work at home (before the days of notebooks, and it was the floppy in the briefcase time) Quality is usually ignored.

And corporate america never ever went for the best product or the cheapest product. It was ususally some weird back room discussion and dealing that determined what was used. The only times I ever saw Office stat to be considered was when everything was stacked against WP and 1-2-3 (MS was cheaper, WP and 1-2-3 were terrible SW and MS started woooooing corporations like they had never before)

And the reason I bring up corporate america, is that if someone buys a PC and ends up with Corel Suite on the machine, and they use Office in the office they will somehow (probably illegally) get Office on their home PC.

Microsoft was smart to do a 2 pronged attack, both COrporate and Home so it isn't like there will be much fighting between the two worlds.

[James_F]

True, but Office had one thing that WP didn't have, Excel. And Office had something that 1-2-3 didn't have, Word. WP and 1-2-3 were better than Word or Excel on their own, but their bundle apps never were as good. AmiPro was crap and Quattro was just as bad. Office was cheaper than buying WP or 1-2-3 by themselves.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by James_F
True, but Office had one thing that WP didn't have. Excel. And Office had something that 1-2-3 didn't have Word. WP and 1-2-3 were better than Word or Excel on their own, but their bundle apps never were as good. AmiPro was crap and Quattro was just as bad. Office was cheaper than buying WP or 1-2-3 by themselves.

I still think that much of corporate america didn't care so much about price (especially when Quatro Pro had all the features of 1-2-3 at 1/2 the price just was ignored by much of COrporate America). Their overpaying for IBM and Compaq equipment instead of equal quality less expensive equipment was apparent.

But it is a chicken and the egg situation as the junky release of WP for WIN and 1-2-3 for WIN occurred at the same time as Office started to bundle everything. So we really can' be 100% sure which really was the true decider.

[James_F]

Thats fine, but the other issue is that word and excel look like each other. It took years for WP or Lotus to integrate their GUI across the different programs. That cut down on training....

[The Tophinator]

The biggest part is what James_F just stated. Microsoft had enough money and designers to make sure all of their programs had a comon look and feel along with shared function keys, inter program compatability and ease of use that the others couldn't match. My Company still uses WP 8 which has more user control than Word but is more buggy and causes our IT department many more headaches. Soon we will be moving to the MS platform completely. We are also using Novell for our network which is in the same boat as WP and will be going to MS. I posted before that I really like Corel for their Graphic tool and I wish they would stick to that.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by The Tophinator
The biggest part is what James_F just stated. Microsoft had enough money and designers to make sure all of their programs had a comon look and feel along with shared function keys, inter program compatability and ease of use that the others couldn't match. My Company still uses WP 8 which has more user control than Word but is more buggy and causes our IT department many more headaches. Soon we will be moving to the MS platform completely. We are also using Novell for our network which is in the same boat as WP and will be going to MS. I posted before that I really like Corel for their Graphic tool and I wish they would stick to that.

But as your own experience points and many of mine, many many companies didn't jump on the boat for years until it was quite obvious what had to be done (probably can't find workers who know WP8 off the street, patches don't come as quick as they should, etc). Just curious, what type of company do you work for (size, type of industry?) This is pretty late in the game to make the jump. What held the company back (lack of budget, lack of desire to rock the boat?), and would the jump even been made if WP8 and the other non-MS Office products weren't such a hastle to support or train employees on.

[The Tophinator]

Gcutler
Government - large - Budgets(Software, Hardware, Training users and administrators) - certain people in control who refuse to give up the ghost.
Pretty much everything you guessed. It would have been better in the long run to do it sooner but some don't see the light until noon.
Like or hate MS you have to admit they know what they're doing and make pretty good stuff.
I am very pleased we are going in the direction we are. It not only helps us( IT Dept.) but the users which a majority have MS products at home and are farmilliar with it.

[gcutler]

Originally posted by The Tophinator
Gcutler
Government - large - Budgets(Software, Hardware, Training users and administrators) - certain people in control who refuse to give up the ghost.
Pretty much everything you guessed. It would have been better in the long run to do it sooner but some don't see the light until noon.
Like or hate MS you have to admit they know what they're doing and make pretty good stuff.
I am very pleased we are going in the direction we are. It not only helps us( IT Dept.) but the users which a majority have MS products at home and are farmilliar with it.

It does pretty much serve everyone to be mostly MS. Finding Support people out of the box is easier (and makes the support people more marketable as well). Putting in "Must know Word and Excel" for any office worker in a want ad also saves time (Can't demand that a new employee already know WP8 walking in the door, will take years to find one receptionist)

You want to hear stupid...previous company I worked for, the corporate office in Denmark was using OS/2 Lan server before Windows 2000. Since they did not understand file/folder based rights they (even though every other Division IT department understood it) send down an edict that only Share based rights were to be used. They were implementing this sophisticated Active Directory setup but dumbing it down to be like IBM OS/2 Lan Server (which had not been changed since the mid 90s). I'm guessing that coming from a Novell environment it won't be that bad but watch them try to take some of Netwares weakest components and try to make Win2000 server match it (instead of making 2000 match the advantages of netware).

[Rick_EE]

I have see that behavior so often. Someone gets a new (fill in whatever you want) that is supposed to be an improvement, and they immediately try to make it just like the old (fill in whatever you want).

[RichW]

I love the CorelDraw Suite and have been using it for years for all of my graphics applications. I think that the PhotoPaint program in the suite is just as good as Adobe Photoshop. I hope someone keeps thre CorelDraw package alive, though it has so many features that even if they didn't come out with another version, the current version is more than enough power for almost every graphic application. In fact, I only have version 10 and several of the self-serve places like Kinkos stopped at version 9.

[James_F]

I think Corel Draw fits in well with Microsoft. They have let Adobe take lots of marketshare without a competing product.

[Richard King]

I obviously have to play (and learn) a bit more with my Corel Draw 9.

[The Tophinator]

gcutler, I know what you mean. I have seen the same thing myself.
RichW, I have used Corel since the first version so I am very farmillar with all the tools in the box. I was even an official beta tester for version 7. It makes it easier when you know the quickest way to to do something with a photo.
I have used Photoshop and have the most current version at work but I still go to PhotoPaint 10 for about 99% of what I do.
I'm sure I'll upgrade to 11 one of these days or 12 if I since it coming soon.
It makes you feel good when someone brings you a pic and asks if you could (fill in blank) with it. After a few clicks, menu options and transforms later they have what they want. The look on their face is priceless. I regularly find a fresh batch of cookies or other thanks on my desk the next day. :)