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Corel

Corel to be bought by Vector Capitol 161

Posted by CowboyNeal from the meet-the-new-boss dept.
mgeoffrey writes "Corel announced that Vector Capitol will acquire Corel by buying out all outstanding shares at $1.05 a share. They are buying 22,890,000 shares. Vector Capitol has published a full report." Looks like the natural continuation after Microsoft sold off their Corel holdings.
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Corel to be bought by Vector Capitol More

Corel to be bought by Vector Capitol

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  • cheap? (Score:1)

    by odt ( 148500 )
    ...or i just dont get it
    • i'd call 24mill cheap

    • Re:cheap? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:05AM (#6138466)
      It does look cheap. You'd think that Corel Draw sales alone would make that investment worthwhile, although perhaps that's all that's of any real value there once you subtract Corel's debts.

      • Re:cheap? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Tancred ( 3904 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:23AM (#6138520)
        High sales volume is great, but they're losing money [yahoo.com], so they're worth nothing (as a whole anyway) unless someone can turn that around. Good luck to everyone at Corel!
        • they own Painter, and that is a terrific painting program. They never promoted it the way it should be promoted.

          I have use Painter for many years, through the good and bad years. It still has a feel like no other.

          Now that SCO is out of the picture, I can update.

      • Re:cheap? (Score:2, Informative)

        by A Guy From Ottawa ( 599281 )
        I read in the Ottawa Citizen this morning that this deal (about 22 million CANADIAN) is about 75% of Corel's annual sales.

        Cheap? I think so...

      • You'd think that Corel Draw sales alone would make that investment worthwhile

        CorelDRAW! is still software. Hasn't the whole tech bubble, and OSS pretty much proven that you cannot count on the long term value of software. Drawing programs are way over priced, can you really count on people always paying substantially more for CorelDRAW! that OSS graphics programs like the Gimp?

        Doesn't CorelDRAW! still own Wordperfect? Five years ago I would would have thought the Wordperfect office suite was a lucra

        • It would be better to compare CorelDRAW to KIllustrator rather than the Gimp, given that Gimp doesn't have sophisticated vector functions. But either way, CorelDRAW wins pretty much hands down in my opinion.
          • The point is that the CorelDRAWS! ability to make money ends as soon as there is an open source program to put the final nails in the coffin. There are few reasons for current customers to buy new licenses, and there is not compelling need for more people in the graphics market. The company passed its peak in its product life cycle and is not too far from the point where they should open source the product and let the hackers maintain the code.
      • In case you were wondering about Vector Capital, here's some history: Vector Capital has over $200 million under management. Our first fund, Vector Capital I, with $40 million of capital, is fully committed or reserved for follow-on investments in existing portfolio companies. The capital for our first fund was provided solely by the Ziff family. (from their website)

    • Re:cheap? (Score:5, Informative)

      by PerryMason ( 535019 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:29AM (#6138543)
      The post isnt actually accurate. Vector Capital purchased 22,890,000 Series A shares from Microsoft on March 10th or thereabouts at $0.5625. They are now offering $1.05 per share for the remaining stock. The board of directors has recommended that shareholders take the offer. It "represents a premium of 42% to the market immediately prior to our announcement that Vector had entered into a non-disclosure and standstill agreement with Corel," said James Baillie, Chairman of Corel's Board of Directors.

      So from the point of view of the shareholders, its probably not a bad deal.

      • Re:cheap? (Score:5, Informative)

        by PerryMason ( 535019 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:02AM (#6138647)
        The maths for anyone who cares;

        Corel shares;
        24,000,000 Series A preferred shares
        91,840,000 common shares.

        VC bought 22,890,000 Series A shares at $0.5625=$12.876 Million.
        They now offer $1.05 per share for the remaining 1,110,000 Series A and 91,840,000 common shares=$97.6 Million.

        So all up your looking at about $110 Million for Corel, 'lock, stock and barrel'.

        Check out their end of quarter financial report [edgar-online.com] up to 28th Feb '03 for the lowdown on their financial position.
        The long and the short is; $50 Million in cash/liquid assets, posting losses but with very few liabilities.
  • These two programs seem to be the drunk floozies that get passed around at the frat party.

    How many different companies have owned these two again?
    • Here's hoping Adobe is smart this time around and buys Painter and some of the Corel vector apps. The brush engine in PS & is ok but it would be a slam dunk if Adobe could integrate the Painter brush engine into PS. Corel Knockout could replace "Extract" in PS too. Illustrator could use a shot in the arm too. Corel Designer could add some sorely lacking features into Illustrator. Adobe had their chance once before when Painter was up for sale. Here's hoping this new VC puts these apps on the block
      • I agree, that would be sweet to have the brush technologies in Photoshop.

        Illustrator needs a kick in the air, but not from Corel. I'd just like to see Illustrator have native trapping built in. Not auto trapping, but trapping along the lines of Artpro.

        But I won't hold my breath
    • Zimmer created Painter and founded Fractal. That was then bought by MetaTools (home of Kai Krause and the infamous KPT series) which became Fractal Design. Fractal Design then went tits up and had everything sold off to various companies (including some actual owners/programmers like Eovia) including Corel.

      Fractal seems to want to create something (they have a cool website - lol) but who knows?

      I wish Apple had bought them and feared MS might have. Glad I was wrong on both accounts.

  • Ah, the old WordPerfect. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cmburns69 ( 169686 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:07AM (#6138474) Homepage Journal
    Wordperfect seems to be a drag on whoever owns them. First they sold out to Novell. Then, Novell unloaded^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^^H sold them to Corel. Now it seems (and its just a shot in the dark) that they have caused hurt to yet another company.

    [MS BASH SECTION]
    Of course, if MS had played fair, none of this would have happened.
    [/MS BASH SECTION]

    Anyway, Corel just hasn't had much of a goal lately. It seems they don't know where to focus their resources; They do everything from linux to graphic software to word processing.. And none of its really working.

    *sigh* It was bound to happen!
    • ^W is a lot faster than ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
      • This may be a little off topic, but I still consider 5.1 for DOS (the one with the blue screen and white text) the best word processor I have ever used, although doing graphics in it was a pain in the rear.

        I even owned a copy of 5.0 for UNIX, but I had to through that out the other day...something about SCO source code or some other crap :). I couldn't run it anyway since I no longer have a 5 1/4 drive or a tape drive that could read the tapes.

        • As I mention in another post, I use WP5.1 for DOS every day. It's my all-around workhorse. I agree it was, overall, the best (AND most bug-free) app of its kind, and that it's still able to do most wordprocessing and even DTP jobs at 15 years old (given that the base version came out in 1988) is remarkable. Graphics weren't so much a PITA as that you had to be good at visualizing how your work would look on paper.

          I have v4.2 for SCO/UNIX in my collection, in the original box. (It won't run on linux, tho.)

    • How to Kill Free Software (Score:5, Funny)

      by jellybear ( 96058 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:36AM (#6138559)
      Logically, then, if someone wanted to kill the Free Software movement, they'd only have to free the Wordperfect source and then...

    • Re:Ah, the old WordPerfect. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Noksagt ( 69097 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:13AM (#6138688) Homepage

      They do everything from linux to graphic software to word processing.. And none of its really working.

      I must protest. I am an fervid WordPerfect user and, until the most recent version of each, it worked far better than Microsoft Word.

      I also know many who still use Corel linux (which Corel (in a move you would say was wise because it focused their resources) dropped).

      I think that their software has usually been good. It doesn't work from a business standpoint, because there is already quality software that is much more popular, and people take popularity over quality any day. It is like VHS vs. BetaMax.

      • Having compared WP10 and OfficeXP myself, give me WP10 any day. Not just because I'm an old WP user back to the 5.0 era, but because Word has too many deficiencies that I'm not going to put up with if I don't have to. And I can't live without PhotoPaint.

        I just hope Vector Capitol doesn't screw around with the software depts, but rather beats the management and marketing depts into having some common sense. There's no good reason why Corel can't make a profit -- and they're in a good position to undercut M$
        • Thanks for pointing out WP 11! I've been using WordPerfect since 4.2 & my family has used earlier versions. I was sad to see 10 after seeing 9. It MIGHT have been a babystep forward, but was almost a couple steps BACK. I use both 9 and 10 in preference to Word, but I still find that Word is always making improvements. I broke down and bought a copy of Office XP & find myself using it. Less bang for your buck than Corel, but Excel and PowerPoint are almost essential to me now.
          • My fave WPWin is v8, but I have 8, 9, and 10 installed on various machines, and use whichever one comes to hand without feeling particular pain. v8 was coded clean from scratch, to get rid of the accumulated kludges.

            The one thing I really dislike about v10 is how it handles HTML editing, or fails to in any reasonable way (you can export, but not really edit). Whereas v8 did pretty well at it.

            I have no use for a spreadsheet (but remember you can set Quattro Pro to look/save-as/behave just like Excel), but

      • Re:Ah, the old WordPerfect. (Score:5, Informative)

        by DragonMagic ( 170846 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @12:05PM (#6139060) Homepage
        WordPerfect is also the best word processor for writers because of its ability to properly typographically lay out a page. Word can screw up severely, even to the point that submitting a work on disk or electronically between versions or even platforms can cause your markup to be askew.

        If OpenOffice.org or other open source projects want to take up where WordPerfect might be dropped (if Vector chooses to kill it or take it the Real way), Typography, Grammar/Spell Checker lookups, Document Analysis (passives, incompletes, etc) and a saved format that does not change between versions and platforms.

        Word fails miserably at all of these (if you believe that Word's Spellcheck is great, check out what WordPerfect's does and be blown away). If Vector doesn't want to continue the line, or want to make it more like Word, then I do hope that OpenOffice.org or another word processing suite can take WordPerfect's place.
      • I also know many who still use Corel linux

        You know people who actually used (and still use) Corel Linux? Wow...

        I just thought of something. You should keep that quiet, or you might get one of the rabid SCO legal drones after the Corel assets.

    • >

      if MS had played fair, none of this would have happened.

      Would play fair in this case mean be late with a bloated version for MS Windows, and overpriced?

      Because that was the case. The first versions of Satellite Software WordPerfect for MS Windows were confusing and bloated. There was one version requiring 6 MB RAM when the norm was 4 MB; MS WinWord at the time asked for only 2 MB. And MS WinWord was cheaper, especially if acquired in MS Office, which was also better integrated. Obviously MS co

      • In defense of Microsoft (a rare event), MS did not yield real monopoly power until after 1995 during the shift from 16-bit to 32-bit computing in the PC world. Recall the hype generated in the media and at the conventions over Windows 95 and OS/2 Warp. Everyone believed that there would be just the two choices, but it was still up in the air as to who would win out, MS or Big Blue. Before then, people had their OS/2 and were happy. Others had Windows 3.1 atop various flavors of DOS. I had PCDOS on a non-bra
      • What a load of crap.

        Would play fair in this case mean be late with a bloated version for MS Windows, and overpriced?

        No, "Play fair" means not dumping your inferior word processor, manipulating vendors and breaking your competitor's code on your OS. It would also mean not buying 10% of your competitor so you can keep it off alternate platforms, like Microsoft did right after Corel made Linux binaries.

        Because that was the case. The first versions of Satellite Software WordPerfect for MS Windows were con

        • >

          "Play fair" means not dumping your inferior word processor

          About dumping I had already agreed, but with the caveat the the way for Satellite would have been free software, not high prices. About MS Word being inferior, there are two sides: MS Word for Windows is indeed inferior to not only WordPerfect but also to Lotus Ami Pro and even MS Word for DOS; but at the time WordPerfect got beaten in the marketplace MS Word needed just a more reasonable amount of system resources. Not only WordPerfect cos

    • They do everything from linux

      They dumped Corel Linux in an effort to re-align themselves to their (then) new investment from MS, and MS promised them a role in .NET.

      MS dumps Corel -- now where are they? Being bought out by some VCs? If COREL had stuck with Corel Linux, they could have used WordPerfect and Corel Office to drive the enterprise GNU/Linux adoption... they would be what Lindows so desperatly wants -- and still be able to compete w/ RedHat et al.

      Leaving GNU/Linux was Corel's worst mista

    • Re:Ah, the old WordPerfect. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bogie ( 31020 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @01:21PM (#6139340) Journal
      Word does nothing but get into the way of what your doing. Want to change the spacing on a few lines? Word reformats everything. Now every line below what you just typed trys to be just like the couple of lines you have custom spacing on.

      I fucking hate word for anything but the most generic text functions. Word Perfect simply gets out of the way and let's you do whatever you want without having to deal with it guessing wrong about every little freaking thing you doing.

      Every seen how legal documents are indented and how they make motions etc look? Image [cnn.com] Ever wonder why Wordperfect has such a huge following at law firms? The fact that law firms are conservative is NOT the answer. Sure you can setup a template or macro, but if you ever color outside the lines Word crumbles.

      I know some people are able to write books, thesis's etc on Word, but that's only after you learn to workaround all of Word's annoying behaviors. Word may have the monopoly but ease of use wise it doesn't come close to Wordperfect.
      • I have been used WordPerfect all my life, from when it was DOS-based up until I switched to Linux recently. It kicked Word's @$$ in everything back then and it still does. Word's grammer-check is nothing compared to WP and so is it's spellcheck. But the real reason I liked using WP so much was that I could see *EXACTLY* what it was doing with "Reveal Codes." For those of you who don't know, you really need to type up a document in WP and then hit Alt-F3 and see what pops up. It is really nifty and show
    • Sorry, I'm in the camp that thinks WordPerfect rocks:

      http://www.emilhouse.com/ [emilhouse.com]

  • Can't wait for the next version of Corel Draw (Score:4, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:08AM (#6138478)
    with vector capitol support ...
  • Our government has sunk to new low levels. With this news, it looks like they've even sold or given our capitol buildings to private capitalists, and now these corporate robber-barons have set up shop in the former seats of government. I guess it's fitting, because they are running this country now.
    • "and now these corporate robber-barons have set up shop in the former seats of government."

      Not only that, but from the name "Vector Capitol" I would guess that the word processing company is being bought out by the maker of the vector-graphics video game console Vectrex [roachnest.com].

  • The Sad Story Of Corel (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ihatewinXP ( 638000 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:10AM (#6138483)
    I have had a special place in my heart for Corel for years, and now they are going the way of so many before them who tried to unsurp the Redmond juggernaut.
    Honestly I am suprised they are worth 22 million, Knockout and Paint aren't what the used to be and Corel Office is dead in the water.
    Maybe they will go the way of Atari, not even a company anymore but a brand that is labeled on things that the corporate office wants to draw attention to.

    • I can understand your feelings to some degree.

      Is there any product (besides Draw) which they didn't manage to fuck up? Wordperfect, Ventura, Corel Linux, ...

    • Me too. I have always thought that Corel's software was underrated. From version 6 onward, CorelDraw gave you far more for your money than anything from Adobe. Yes, Photoshop was better for... a *photo shop*, but if you were a web shop, the CorelDraw suite just made more sense.

      Then they purchased another of my favorite graphics programs, Painter. I thought for sure they had something going. They even had the promising beginnings of a video editor with Lumiere, but they dropped that just as quickly as they

  • Vector own Real Networks! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Znonymous Coward ( 615009 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:12AM (#6138488) Journal
    And by the looks of this page [vectorcapital.com], Corel is just another dog to add to thier lackluster portfolio.

  • Vector Capitol? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by blitzoid ( 618964 )
    Now I just may be stupid, but this is the first time I've ever heard of 'Vector Capitol'.

    Who are they? Have they done anything I might know of?

    Also, bring back CorelDRAW for Linux, damnit!

    • Re:Vector Capitol? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ThogScully ( 589935 ) <neilsd@neilschelly.com> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:21AM (#6138510) Homepage
      I'll second that - I'm a huge CorelDraw zealot as I've been using it for years. I know the "real" pros use Adobe, but most of those people probably don't realize how ahead of the curve Corel was for graphics technology at times.

      The interfaces between the packages were so different that to an Adobe person, Corel seemed lightweight and useless and from my perspective as a Corel user, Adobe often looked the same. Either way, preference goes and I miss using Corel a lot. I got a version of Corel9 for Windows running in WINE, but would much rather get the latest versions...

      Somehow, I think Vector Capital may be doing this though... I can't imagine what they expect to do at this point, but it will probably be focusing on something that won't compete with MS at least until Corel gets back on its feet. If so, CorelDRAW is the perfect candidate to bring back to the market.
      -N
      • Sure, CorelDraw is great for graphics if you only want to see your images on screen. You will grapple with the beast if you even think about sending a CorelDraw file to a Postscript RIP, which will choke, puke, sputter, and die when it receives the file. I grew up in the "desktop printing" industry, beginning in 1998. I know how uneasy it is to output CorelDraw files.
        • My experience in all sorts of output mediums, including some PS RIPs in desktop printing showed Corel to be much more valuable than Adobe. The input and output filters by shear number and feature implementation were second to none.
          -N
        • My experience doesn't bear this out at all.

          >I grew up in the "desktop printing" industry, beginning in 1998.

          Hehe, by that time I was leaving the "desktop printing" industry, and getting back into programming. I already had a portfolio of very nice work, all output from Corel and (gasp...) DESIGNED ON A PC, and almost every time I showed this work to a typical Mac/Photoshop zealot, they were shocked. Some of them simply refused to believe you could do this wort of work on a PC, much less with Corel. (An
      • I have both PhotoPaint (which I use every day) and Photoshop (which I only haul out when I need some esoteric function that PhotoPaint doesn't do). Yeah, Photoshop may be what the "pros" use, but for most purposes, Photopaint will get the same job done in a fraction of the time, and with a far gentler learning curve.

        It was quite a sinking feeling to see Corel lose its independence. I just hope this Vector Capital really intends to help Corel get their act back together, not bury it for good.

    • Forget CorelDRAW for Linux. Sodipodi [sourceforge.net] is shaping up as an excellent vector graphics program for Linux. Now if only Adobe and Mozilla would sort out support for SVG, the world would be a happy place.

  • Wouldn't it be nice Corel Draw where Open source? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by deragon ( 112986 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:15AM (#6138494) Homepage Journal
    It would have been nice that governments of developped countries would have shipped in, bought Corel for $24 millions and released all their products as open source...

    Generic applications should be seen as public services, the same as roads and services....
    • Heck, even developing countries might save money by funding open-source efforts instead of paying license fees. Every government desk has a computer on it, and pretty much every one of those is using a microsoft OS... does anybody know what that costs?
    • $24M? it's just about $1M per country if 24 goverments are in.

      Counting the fact that first class countries must help third ones, it makes sense if G8 + other next 16 the most developed ones will pay it. Actually it's them who should be blamed for the Microsoft monopoly. So, let them fix what they've done. And the price ($1M) is not really high for that.

  • Ok, bad pun time... (Score:3, Funny)

    by rusty0101 ( 565565 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:20AM (#6138504) Homepage Journal
    It looks like Corel has drawn to a conclusion.

    -Rusty

  • Does anyone here check facts? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS ( 313647 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:24AM (#6138526) Homepage
    The sale price is $98,000,000.

    http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/030606/tech_corel_vector _3 .html

    I didn't make that a link because I wanted slashcode to annoy you with the extraneous blank.
  • I know the interest in retro gaming, but the interest in Corel seems to be part of a desire for "retro apps", nostalgia for good old long-outdated Word Perfect.

    By the way, anyone know what ever became of Wordstar?
    • Microsoft bought it to learn about intuitive user interfaces.
    • I think people still use old versions of Word Perfect simply because there is no need to upgrade. I mean, once you create a product that does what the users want it to do, what is the purpose of upgrading it and adding features people are not going to use? I'm happy using vesion Word Perfect version 9 and I hope that I will never have to upgrade ever again. Well, maybe I'll just start using Open Office
  • First, Microsoft sells their Corel stocks. Then, a Microsoft executive sells some of his stock in the Company. Am I the only one who sees a pattern here? They must be in trouble...

    • Re:I smell a conspiracy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Locutus ( 9039 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:03AM (#6138656)
      I think the pattern is more like this:

      Peru is considering Open Source and GNU/Linux

      India is considering open Source and GNU/Linux

      Germany is considering open source and GNU/Linux

      etc, etc, etc

      Bill and Steve travel to Peru, China, India, Germany, etc and offer hundreds of millions of dollars to stop any migration to GNU/Linux and OSS.

      Peru still continues move to OSS and GNU/Linux

      Indian president proclaims need to move to OSS and GNU/Linux

      Germany/Munich starts move to OSS and GNU/Linux

      etc, etc, etc.

      Steve Balmer decides he'd like to have SOMETHING left from his years at Microsoft so he starts selling some stock.

      Leaked MS memo shows to the public that GNU/Linux and OSS really is a concern/threat to Microsoft.

      In the mean time, Corel has been spinning it's wheels on figuring out what/how it's going to do anything with MS.Net then realizes there's nothing in it for them and that there's no money left in the bank. They put up a "For Sale" sign.

      GNU/Linux companies find renewed interest in their companies/stock. ( not chronologically exact ;)

      LoB

      • Re:I smell a conspiracy (Score:2, Interesting)

        by 00_NOP ( 559413 )
        A surprising fact is that if you'd invested your money in Red Hat two years ago you'd be wealthier now than then, but not if you'd put it in MSFT.

        Mind you, if you'd put your money in, say, Red Hat, when they floated, you'd be a lot better off if you'd kept it in MSFT.
      • GNU/Linux companies find renewed interest in their companies/stock. ( not chronologically exact ;)
        Yes, I think that last point occurs some time in 1999, or maybe 2005.

  • OSS Buyouts (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 07, 2003 @09:55AM (#6138606)
    $22 million for Corel? Hell. It's time for the open-source community to start considering buyouts. That's about US $1.22 per user, according to one estimate [li.org]. Not a high price to pay for the WP and Corel Draw source.
    • Problem is in cases where i've seen that tried, some other company with a bankrole comes in an snags it. Unless there was a public trust exclusivly for the purpose of buying up companies to add their welth to the OSS movement, it's none too practical as it takes too long to aquire funds from public.

    • Yeah, I hear this small little niche 3-d package was recently bought by this... open source community of which you speak.

  • What an astounding waste of money (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nagora ( 177841 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:15AM (#6138696)
    You can tell it's not their own cash on the line.

  • Ouch! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:20AM (#6138710) Journal
    The graphics software market is something that no one ever really looks at closely, most people preferring to speak their mind on office and operating system software. While there have been various legal suits in this market (Adobe-Macromedia), it doesn't enjoy the high profile that Microsoft word does.

    Corel getting bought out by the people who now own Real is not a good sign for Corel users. As someone who actually sold and supported version 1 of Corel Draw back on Windows 2.11 in 1989, I have watched this piece of Software go the way of many other innovative products. Corel was by far the leader in vector illustration software in the early years on Windows as there was no competition to speak of. Then Freehand and Illustrator were ported and those pros who use Windows (good luck) used these.

    Corel never learned the lesson why the other programmes were taken seriously and CorelDraw was not: Quality. CD's enourmous amount of features and gimmicks mostly only got in the way. The programme's instability and ,even to this day in CD 11, sometimes wildly inaccurate colourschemes and positioning, are the reason why almost no pros use it.

    Corel has had almost no direction or focus, and buying up other software houses' products in order to bolster their bad model (Painter, Bryce, Knockout, Word Perfect, Ventura) only fragmented an already overworked development team.

    I think I will buy Painter 8 now, before it ceases to exist. CorelDraw will probably carry on haunting the world in the form of die hards who still think Corel is fantastic, but I somehow doubt that we'll see any new versions of WP, Ventura, Bryce or Painter.

    R.I.P.

  • Bryce (Score:5, Insightful)

    by macaddict ( 91085 ) on Saturday June 07, 2003 @10:31AM (#6138741)
    This is interesting, considering Bryce for Mac was just killed. From MacCentral [macworld.com] and MacNN [macnn.com]. The Corel suit won't give a straight answer, but the Bryce page no longer lists a Mac version.

    Corel was apparently looking for a buyer for Bryce. How this buyout will affect things, who knows. But I'm not going to get my hopes up for Bryce to ever run on the Mac again.

    But, we still have Vue [e-onsoftware.com]. And Eric Wenger, the original creator of Bryce, posted on the U&I forums that he is working on a new landscape creator. Demo images [uisoftware.com]

  • Enough!!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by micaiah ( 593598 )
    What I can't understand is why these companies can't get their act together and come to the realization that they aren't going to be able to compete with Microsoft on their own? What there needs to be is a coalition of companies to offer an alternative solution. e.g. Novell, Sun, Red Hat, Suse, Oracle, and Corel should work together to offer complete solutions that work together. This is one of Microsoft's biggest selling points right now. They offer solutions that tie together with IMHO closed standards. W
  • Here in DC I do support work on the side for small law firms - at least 50% of the firms I have been to have some (legally licensed!) version of WP installed on workstations - usually next to a copy of MS Office.

    There are lots of people who still use WP - their market share isn't great but the total number of users certainly isn't anything to sniff at - I bet IBM would kill to have the WP userbase to switch to SmartSuite...

  • capital vs. capitol (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Capitol is where the head of a government is.
    Capital is goods or money.

    Its not very hard.

    Notice the original Slashdot poster got it wrong (Capitol) but -- thank goodness -- Vector got it right
    on the linked site (Capital).

    • Capitol is where the head of a government is.
      Almost. The capitol is the building where the legislature meets, named after the Capitol in Washington, which was named after the Capitol (a temple to Jupiter) in ancient Rome. The city where the government is based is the capital city.

  • Dead, anyway. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mcgroarty ( 633843 ) <{moc.liamg} {ta} {ytraorgcm.nairb}> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @11:00AM (#6138872) Homepage
    Corel won't even let you register CorelDraw and similar without agreeing to submit your physical and 'net locations to a sleazy "opt-out" spam house, presumably so they get a kick back, and further -- installs spyware (according to AdAware, anyway) on your system. This is bullshit in what's supposed to be a $500 professional package. CorelDraw is about their only remaining money maker, and they're driving customers away.

    I took mine back to the store, exchanged it as decective, then turned around and returned the unopened copy. Good riddance.

  • Several anonymous cowards have already pointed this out, but I thought I'd point it out at +2:

    The name of the company is Vector Capital (as in venture capital.) Please update the article.

    Thanks.
  • I've been using WordPerfect since 1986, and Paradox since 1991, so I'm a customer. But bugs haven't been getting fixed in the last few years. The products are pretty stable as they are, but there are well-known bugs that keep showing up in every new version.

    A few weeks ago I needed a spreadsheet with a formula in 1-2 million cells. Since Quattro Pro was on my machine, I fired it up, defined my rows and columns, created my formula, gave the copy command, and Quattro Pro crashed. I checked the docs for any l
  • So Corel has been bought. This is the death of Corel as a company. Parts will be sold off and liquidated and thats it. There will not be new releases of any of their software. Long live Corel. Corel is dead.

  • open source Corel Word Perfect Office... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxpro@@@gmail...com> on Saturday June 07, 2003 @07:41PM (#6140589)
    The new owners should send Word Perfect Office into open source...its a better word processor than Open Office... The new owners could continue to release a commercial branded *Word Perfect* specifically for the legal field since Word Perfect still has that market cornered... We'd all benefit from this, much to the chagrin of Microsoft... That would leave the new Corel off the hook to focus back on their graphics software...

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