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Interview: Corel CEO Michael Cowpland
Corel has been making big waves in the Linux world lately, and Michael Cowpland is the man at the top of Corel. One question per post, please. As always, the 10 - 15 questions sent on will be those moderated highest, with additional culling (if necessary) done by Slashdot editors and hangers-on. We select questions shortly after 1200 EST on Tuesday. Answers are scheduled to appear Friday mid-day. So ask away, and moderators, get those points sharpened up and ready to go!
Mr. Cowpland, you are good in that you have allied yourself with Linux to produce applications, and help newbies become productive on the operating system, however you are a right wing extremist capitalist who uses your lower priced computer programs to get rich off the backs of the poor. Could you please GPL all your applications so that they may be distributed freely, and that all may benefit? I have hope that you will do this since you live in the socialistically influenced nation-state of Canada, and may be more amenable to our requests. Could you also please include socialist pamphlets in all your applications so that the truth about us may be spread?
Actually, Nortel is just pissy because nobody wants to work for them. They have more internal bureaucracy than the government, their work environment demands that engineers work hours and hours of unpaid overtime, their quality processes take up about 4/5ths of an engineer's time, they can't put a product out with less than 5 years of development, and nobody in their right mind would work for them.
Believe me, I used to work for them.
And what will you do if I 'don't keep my mouth shut? Open a can of that famous Canadian Whupass on me? haahahaha...
not only will they have to stop saying "eh" at the end of each sentence, they're also going to have to learn how to drive.
You must live in the States. :) I excuse you, for you know no better. Come visit sometime :) You'll be welcomed, so long as you keep your mouth shut.
myself and many others had written to corel when plans were in place to drop mac support. my opinion is that an office product which is able to be used on any platform, and is consistent among these platforms would be a product worth switching to. does corel plan on introducing lite versions of products at realistic prices for those unable to afford full-fare versions, and will corel try and extend their reach with online versions similar to star office?
Okay, I was approved as a beta-tester. When am I gonna see my copy? First, I was told before Christmas, then right after the first of the year. It's now January 17, and still no box from Corel in sight. Care to comment on the issues facing getting the beta out the door, and why the continual slippage in target dates?
how much money have you embezzled this year and what is your favorite mathod of embezzlement?
Sorry about 2 questions but I am very interested as I am thinking of embezzeling money myself.
thank you.
Hey cow-dude, I need a serial for Word Perfect 2k, got any extras?
You stupid yank! Those people from the east ARE pretty dense, but Canada is a big country and there are people in the west.
You live in Rockcliffe?
You rich bastard.
l33t wins
I would like to appened the above question by adding, "Dr. Cowpland, while some other distributions include graphical installs, all of them include text-based install options. Given the sometimes 'difficult' device support for Linux, does Corel plan to include a text-based install option?"
And on a more personal note, "Dr. Cowpland, please do not forget your roots. Carleton University introduced your company to the Linux revolution, thank you for the netwinders. However, the Linux project is hurting in terms of popularity, some investment would raise awareness, and create a whole new crop of Linux junkies that will do more free stuff for you. Similar to making your netwinder distribution."
Lastly, "Dr. Cowpland, I too am a Porsche person. Are you planning on purchasing one of the new 911 Turbos? Or are you waiting for an 'S' variation? When you do decide to buy, may I have your current model? Also, do you drive it in the winter?"
Well, I lied, one more, "Do you find it as cold here in Ottawa as I do? It was -28C this morning without windchill. What do you do to battle the cold? Do you prefer the toque/scarf combination? Or the full hood method?"
Okay, I'm done now.
I purchased the "standard" version box set. In it, my boot disk is an old Word Perfect "Program 1" disk, which you can plainly see through the "Boot Disk" sticker revealing the original WP Program 1 sticker. Are you guys always that cheap, or is the money really getting that tight?
Mr. Cowpland,
Is it Corel's corporate policy to release inflated projected revenue numbers before you wish to sell your stock?
Do you think you will get away with the securities fraud you initiated?
Compare: StarOffice from Sun: US$19.00, 15 minutes to order, 2 days to receive. WordPerfect from Corel: US$300, hard to find anywhere, who-knows-how-long to receive.
We really wanted WP at home, but guess what my wife and I are using instead?
Canadians. At least for now. When we exhaust all of our natural resources, Canada will be annexed and will become our 51st state. Then they will become Americans, whether they like it or not. They will also have to stop saying "eh?" at the end of each sentence as well.
According to the Corel Linux homepage, Corels Linux products will be licensed with the CPL which is the same as the Mozilla license. Why don't you use (L)GPL on all your Open Source software instead. Since you use Debian as base I would think that would be a fair way of sayting thanks. Debian is the GNU distribution, as you probably know.
Do you think that the best interests of shareholders and employees would be well served if you were to TEMPORARILY step down, until the issues surrounding as yet unproven allegations of securities fraud are settled?
As an Australian I have had the pleasure of living in Canada and spending some time in Toronto (amongst other places). While staying in Toronto I met a gentleman from Florida. We had an enlightening conversation that went something like the following:
Me: So what brings you to Toronto.
Him: Well I've got my annual leave, so I thought I would come and have a driving holiday in Canada.
Me: You drove, that sounds great.
Him: Yeah will this year I've got a whole week so I thought I would use it constructively.
Me: A week? (thinking how could anyone only get 1 weeks annual leave, and then think constructive use of that time is to drive someplace half a continent away)
Him: Yeah
Me: So do you like Toronto.
Him: I am amazed by Toronto. I went to have a look downtown, and there were all these people working.
Me: What do you mean?
Him: Well there wre all these people that were like going to their jobs and stuff. I always thought Canadians lived on social security and stuff.
Me: You were surprised 'cause you went into the downtown of North America's fourth largets city and saw people working?
Him: Yeah ain't that amazing. Say do people work in Australia too?
Then there was the time This Hour Has 22 Minutes had the Governor of one of the southern states saying "Congratulations Canada on saving your National Igloo"
Now there is stupidity all over the world, including Austrlia (net censorship anyone?)and I would never judge a whole society based on the words of one civilian and a senior state politician, but I saw a lot of stupidity in North America, and most of it was south of Niagra.
Be warned. Mr. Cowpland will be tried for securities fraud later this month in Toronto, Canada. Corel has a history of falsely inflated revenue projections before insiders sell shares. Unlike the US where an officer of a company must file in advance the intention to sell shares of their own company, in Canada you file that you have sold shares up to 30 days AFTER the event.
Due to the low Canadian dollar labour for software developers is 50% cheaper in Canada relative to the United States. Although corporate taxes in Ontario are around 24% per year, Corel, like any high tech company in Canada, may take advantage of a research tax credit offered by the Canadian government to cover the cost of their software development salaries. Despite the research tax credit Canadian companies are finding that it is very hard to find skilled employees as they all want to move to the States to take advantage of much lower personal taxes. Nortel, another Canadian firm, had an ultimatum for the Canadian government: if they do not lower personal taxes significantly they will be forced to follow the labor pool and set up its head office in the United States.
At least your name isn't Cowplop...errr...Cowpland
We were hoping to use Corel Linux in the local Schools, but the fact that the kids can't get their own copies because the License terms forbid users under 18 years, puts us _right_ off. Is this `must be 18 to use' a firm policy?
And have you embraced more than Linux? Are the allegation about your atttraction to Tux true? Are they?
We see this time and again, rampant disregard for morality and BURNING PENGUIN LUST!
It's a NATIONAL DISGRACE! Always these men in suits with their little stuffed penguins, fondling them, caressing their soft little feathers, feeding them little pieces or raw herring.
Free penguins from their chains of SEXUAL SLAVERY!
I Thank You,
Opus
personally i was not stupid enough to buy one of those pieces of shit... when some company bozo gets on the mailing list and basically says '[the netwinder WILL be supported]' then you know that the netwinder wont be supported,, otherwise he wouldnt be so nervous and angry and frustrated to blabber half-screaming didactic replies instead of simply discussing the issue... the damn fan on the thing didnt even work right, was loud as hell.. i mean.. what the hell was the problem? obviously you have a vested interest in saying 'it was some underlings fault' on the other hand investors are not gonna accept that shit from a CEO for too long a period of time.. unless they are all morons.
Why was this moderated down? Its a facinating question.
You forgot to mention his plastic wife (or is that what you meant by evening wear??)
Will corel be porting the voice recognition portion of corel office to Linux? What does Cowpland see as the future of voice recognition?
Unfortunately that documentation (and the mini HOWTO that it links) is wrong. If you install NT first, then Linux, you can run LILO from the MBR and have access to both. LILO will kick off NT's boot loader just fine.
Your wife is kinda cheap, how do you deal with that, or are you cheap, too.
What will the OS of the future be? Do you think Microsoft Windows is or will be "the OS of the super highway and the future", as Bill Gates describes in his book "The Road ahead"? What do you think must change in the future ?
I heard that MS has already developed a MS Office for Linux. It is ready and it is hush hush. They will not release it or even talk about it. It is there as a "plan B" in case linux actually become popular.
you post some (rational) arguments which *gasp* dont say that MS is evil and Linux is perfect, and everyone jumps on you as an MS fanboy (that was the latest AOL thread)
:(
Now you post something challenging a company to embrace open source, the same open source which the same Anti-MS bigoted morons in the other thread always say will save the planet
and you still get marked a troll
just goes to show the awful state of moderation at this place
hardly a canuck. plus he knows dick about linux. good luck on the interview with his prep guy. -- a real canuck, and ex-corellian
Good Lord! No wonder things are the mess they are if people belive this.
Governments *print* money, they do not make it. They do so primarily to have a convinient medium with which to levy taxes.
Business creates wealth. All of it. They use money because it ads to the convienience and profitability of doing business. Just as the government finds it a problem to accept chickens in payment of taxes, so does business find it problamatic to accept a mortgage for 1/1000 of a cow for a copy of Linux Journal.
Businesses can exist without money because they trade in real wealth. In fact business predates money. Much to the chagrin of the governments of the world much business *is* conducted without money, and they're trying to put a stop to it. Money without business, ummm, isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
take a pledge today to nuke the US if GW Bush is elected president?
thank you.
Just for your information, I was at a computer engineering society meeting, (Eta Kappa Nu), here at the University of Michigan where we had the Microsoft Vice President of Microsoft Office speak to us.
Someone specifically raised up the question whether they were thinking of possibly supporting other platforms than Win32, and their horrid support for MacOS, and he said specifically that they had no intentions whatsoever to port to Linux. This is from the man in charge of the direction that MS Office goes. (Though it looks like his job will be lightened now that Gates is Chief of Software.)
Heh, look at your last name Anonymous...
Free Slash !
well, stop doing drugs so early in the day, you dumb mexican.
It seems to me most of the problems have been that Corel tends to use its standard closed-source licenses instead of starting with an open-source license and modifying it only as far as needed to protect Corel's IP rights.
Can Corel hire a lawyer with expertise in OSS to review and bless all licences, beta-test agreements and applications, BEFORE they make them public. This would limit the flamewars against Corel when they come out with a new OSS product.
Is Corel committed to support XML, SVG, SMIL and other open standards in its products ?
[nt]
Ah yes, that's why we all want to make real money, to live in a slum, eat at Mickey Dee's, and marry some cow from the trailer park.
What on earth has lifestyle got to do with running a software company? Would it make any difference to you if he ran a paperclip company, or was president of Playboy?
Hey Hef, should a publisher be living like a Playboy?
I like the idea of an Open Sourced WP5.1 !!!
Have you ever dumped a bowl of hot grits down your pants?
But then after NT craps out and you have reinstall NT bye bye Lilo I think the key thing to do would be not to install it per se in the MBR but have the bootloader on the partition That way when Billware is reinstalled you just make the partition that Linux is installed on the active one.
:) )))??
Also my question to Good old Mikey is:
"After the whole stock market decides that something other than Linux is the hot commodity to put their money in (it could and probably will happen) and looking at how Redhat is running at a loss and Corel's stock plummets (hypothetically but possible) what will Corel do to bring up their stock?
Also does he still talk to Terry (Matthews (Newbridge founder (my former boss before being turfed in a big layoff earlier this year(No I'm not bitter
What has Corel contributed to Wine?
Dear Mr Cowpland,
Would you mind if I asked about the upgrade path of Corel Linux OS? Right now, it's based on Debian 2.1/slink, which is in turn, a glibc 2.0 based system.
However, as more and more hot applications are depending on glibc 2.1 now(for example, JDK 1.2.2, Oracle 8i), how is Corel going to address to the problem regarding to upgrading the system?
There are ways performing the upgrade(thru the hard way, and one might risk trashing the system), but I guess for sure, an easy upgrade path would be more desirable to the typical desktop users - especially, when Corel Linux is projecting itself as a Windows replacement.
Thanks in advance.
Best Rgds,
Lost in Toronto.
Moderate him up!
swallow or spit?
For many years I have been a user of products that are now sold under the Corel name. As a non-user of Microsoft products, I find it is harder to sell myself in the computer world. Is Corel considering legal action against Microsoft for it's anti-competitive practices?
What is Corel's XML strategy? The information given here sounds very promising, but I would like to know more. In particular:
Oh, and who can I complain to about broken import filters in WordPerfect 8? :-)
If AOL buys Corel, he'll likely share a glass display case in the lobby with Marc Andreesen.
His wife gets her own glass display case, however.
Since Corel started talking about Linux at least 2 years ago, I have been looking forward to availability of Corel Office and Graphics applications on Linux. With the exception of Word Perfect, this hasn't happened. Why not?
Now, is that really a relevant question?
Surely you've heard their squeaky adolescent voices in that "Nerds In Outer Space" web radio show they put on from time to time. . .
tickles me pink to think that a moderator wasted a -1 on me.
Please, sir, may I have another?
what is a canuck and are you one?
thank you.
COREL LINUX SCREWED UP MY BOOT SECTOR, MADE MY FAT32 PARTITION INACCESSABLE, AND FUCKED UP MY BIOS!!! I WOULD NOT GIVE THIS PRODUCT TO MY WORST ENEMY!!! AND THERE IS NO MAKE COMMAND!!! AND NO WAY TO SET UP LILO!!! AND NO WAY TO NOT INSTALL THE COREL BOOT MANAGER!!! NOW... the civilized part: Dear old chap, when the fuck are you going to give me a command line option? Why do you have one "no-share" cd? Did you miss the point? Outside of these complaints, i love you man. Peace. :)
Where are my GPFs? I WANT MY GPFS!!
How does it feel to have "Cow" as part of your name?
Slashdot is a complete waste because the comments near the top always get more pageviews as it were.
The system really needs to randomize the posts (and their responses) so everyone gets a fair view. I mean, after a page or two of comments who reads it?
If you read this and agree, and you are a moderator, push me up a point. Perhaps the folks at Slashdot will get a clue and change their system.
I signed in as Anonymous becuase I did not want to increase my "Karma" if I get moderated up.
Michael, How will the various Linux vendors differentiate themselves without forking like Unix did in the past 20 Years? Have been seeing games ported to LInux, which is refreshing, but we need continuously improving desktop Apps to make it a business reality. A solid desktop isn't enough! Thanks - John Westerdale
Do you use Corel Linux on a daily basis, and if so, what made you choose it given the large number of Linux distributions available today.
Free Slash !
While much of the open source hoopla right now is on Natalie Portmand and Drew Barrymore, I think your wife Marlen Cowpland is just as attractive.
When are you going to release her source code to the Open Souce community?
KDE and Gnome emulate the Windows world. With Corel's focus on the Desktop, there are some advantages to that -- moving desktop users to linux. On the other hand, emulating the Windows world does not lead to an easier GUI. Is Corel considering improving the Desktop experience by inovating the destop the way Apple has with Aqua?
I've seen copies of WP for Linux sitting on the shelves of computer stores looking like they belong there (this is not a bad thing of course!). WP seems to be getting into some places where they don't even have RH yet.
So my question is what is Corel doing to push their linux software out into the market place? Are you sending free copies to stores? waiting for them to request it?
Whatever it is, good job!
Stuff like Jeff Green's Midnight Stranger and Mode?
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I want to see a generic 'scripting module' available to all Linux applications, letting users their preferred scripting language to control their applications.
Should every application present itself through an object interface (like K OpenParts) and let the objects be controlled by any language with KOP integration?
I was pleased to see WP8 for Linux at the local Office Depot. (Even though I already have it, I considered buying at just to make them order more...)
:)
:)
One of the unique things that Corel can bring to Linux is very good distribution channels. Are there plans to work with other Linux companies (like, say, Loki) to help get their products on store shelves, too?
I said I thought about buying WP8 even though I have it just to send a "keep this stocked" signal to Office Depot... but if there were Linux games on the shelf, I'd have bought them on the spot.
Linux Games do matter...
Thank you.
RFC2119
I know Corel is no longer directly in charge of the NetWinder, but maybe you can still answer my questions: Although the NetWinders are extremely tempting machines, they seem considerably overpriced for their speed. Are you considering dropping the prices?
no taxation without representation!
The quality of many of Corel's products is even worse then Microsoft's equivalents. Right now Corel has 2 Linux products: WordPerfect 8 and Corel Linux. Both suck.
WP8 is simply unusable. (Just compare it to the Windows version of WP8 and tell me if I'm wrong).
And Corel Linux is a poor excuse for a distribution. It was released in a rush just in time for Comdex, even though it has nothing to offer except a few fancy graphics and lots of bugs. (Is Corel seriously trying to sell it?)
___
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Corel's has made many contributions to the Wine project in the eyes of the non-Corel wine project members (quite possibly the most important people to impress at this stage.) One of your main motivations for this must be the framework to port the Corel Office package to Linux. I imagine upon completion of the Office port, any motivaton to continue major contributions, barring maintenance, would likely be focused on general Microsoft Windows XX emulation.
That said I've got a few questions.
I've heard it said that the last five percent of any project takes ninty five percent of the effort to complete. Do you intend to fork your Wine tree in the hopes of being the only Windows alternative for running some Windows programs? Or will you keep your Wine efforts public in the hopes of making the Windows market, a commodity market?
In either case, barring radical mutilation of Mircosoft on the part of the DOJ, would you be willing to donate legal defence funding to the Wine team durring the inevitable legal onslought to be brought on by Microsoft? Do you think you will have a choice?
Their are several legal efforts in various stages to outlaw reverse engineering here in the states. Do you think countermeasures are neccesary to put the brakes on the impending anti-reverse enginereing bills?
Matthew Newhall
President of Long Island Linux Users Group and a CORL stockholder.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I've used WordPerfect since WP5.1 for DOS and have just installed COLOS with WP for Linux. As a member of the newsgroups at Corel I have seen firsthand the loyalty of WP customers. It seems to me that this loyalty synergizes perfectly with the Open Source movement and yet, thus far, Corel has had some stumbles regarding open source community relations. What is Corel doing to expand the open source nature of their business and to embrace the willing support offered to it by its loyal users? Beta programs would be one thing we could examine here.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
btw I'm a proud purchaser of Wordperfect 8 and I downloaded Corel Linux. Cross platform is good
---
Have you ever tried BeOS? (hoping for BeOS ports of Wordperfect and CorelDraw)
---
Many years ago, when I was working on the first revision of my book, I kept my computer dual boot so that I could run Word Perfect and Corel Draw.
I no longer have any computers that run Windows, but it would be handy to be able to reuse my old
illustrations in Corel Draw in the next revision.
How soon, if ever, will Corel Draw be released under Linux? Will the price remain in the several hundred dollar realm? Or will the price be lowered
to a more reasonable level (as has Word Perfect)?
I have found that my threshold of pain for a software package at home to be $50-100 depending
upon how much I feel I need the program. Have you
done any research on the spending habits of
Linux vs. Windows home users? Are many people, like me, more willing to buy 3 smaller $60 packages than one big $150 package?
Do you see the software market recongizing that
most home copies of software are not purchased,
and dramatically reducing the cost of the software and aiming for the support and convenience products: books, tech support packages, update subscriptions etc. as primary profit centers?
In light of some of the more visionary ideas evolving in the marketplace (application servers, write once - run anywhere, and universal interoperability (XML) being the keys ones IMHO), how does Corel intend to leverage Linux and/or open source in order to effectively compete with the likes of Microsoft and other large companies?
In other words, is Corel only going to continue to pursue the desktop market via Linux and Windows, or will it put together a broader strategy which makes good on some of the promises that the above visions imply?
Please mod this post only if you think others should/n't read this. I have enough ego^H^H^Hkarma. Thanks!
The installation corrupted my partition table
on a 14G IBM drive. The graphic fdisk refuses
to install on a preformated ext2 partition and
I made the mistake of letting it create a new
partition at the same place. It turned out that
it made a small mistake which trashed the
partition table. I had to reinstall everything
meaning winblows, OS/2, DRDOS and SuSE Linux.
That of course after restoring the partition
table. I uses the image version published on the
net.
Any plan on fixing this? Is the bug present also
on the release version, meaning the commercial
one?
To what do you attribute the long, steady drop in market share of WordPerfect for Windows? In retrospect, what could you have done differently to have at least slowed it down?
When can we expect to see CorelDraw for Linux? What sort of pricing can we expect for CorelDraw?
I talked to some Corel reps who were at my local LUG (Ottawa) and from what they said in late November, Corel Office will be out in Feburary, as will Corel Draw. I asked some dfferent reps at another function in Ottawa, and they said the same thing. So I would imagine it will be out by March or April.
Mike
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
it's a little early in the morning...well OK so it is afternoon, but I just woke up, and am still a bit groggy. Sorry.
:(
As for featureness, from what they told me, it will matchup pretty close. Not sure on the differences, so I guess I am just wasting everyone's time now
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
What do you think the future of Linux is? By this I mean, how long before it gets integrated into the mainstream (desktops, homes, etc.)? Furthermore, do you think that the future breakup of Microsoft will have any effect on Linux's popularity? Will it play a role in Corel's future supported platforms (i.e. CorelDRAW for Linux)?
Dr. Cowpland, Why not restore Paradox to dominance on the desktop database by making it open source? It is still the best of its kind.
Dr. Cowpland, Why not prove your dedication to open source by making Paradox Open Source? That way people will quit leaving it out the lists of Corel's products when they ask about your company!
Doc Cowpland, Why not test the waters of Open Source with part of your Desktop? Open Paradox. It may restore it to its former place as king of the desktop database.
So Paul, unless you run Inprise, who is better situated to make Paradox Open Source, you, me, or Cowpland?
Amen Brother.
You never know.. Corel might have some sort of connections with RedHat and they don't want to "burn" any bridges by not recommending a RH product :)
The fact that Corel chose Debian should speak for itself.
--
GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.
1. the year. IIRC the alegations of insider trading are for 1998 or before, not 1999. At that time the stocks were trading somewhat below their previous high; then, the quarterly results were in and the stock started its slide to about $4 CND.
2. MC has some to do with the Corel Centre but very little if anything with the Senators.
just my $2.0E^-2, CDN at that
cheers,
Frank
A truth that's told with bad intent, Beats all the lies you can invent. -- William Blake
There has been talk lately of moving the Ottawa Senators out of Canada to the more 'economically friendly' USA. What a travesty.
Is Corel involved in the negotiations with the Canadian government to obtain tax breaks and bring Canadian hockey teams back to profitability? What would happen to the Corel Centre if the Senators decided to fly?
-Mattyj
I eagerly await the release of WP suite for Linux and Corel Draw. I know WP suite has a voice recognition version for windows. Will there be such a version for Linux? Do you have any plans for integrating voice recognition with KDE/Gnome like IBMs via voice does for windows? I think having a general api so any engine can do, but actually shipping Corel linux with a version of Dragon speak configured would be a great way to distinguish your product!
I eagerly await the release of WP suite for Linux and Corel Draw. I know WP suite has a voice recognition version for windows. Will there be such a version for Linux? DO you have any plans for integrating voice recognition with KDE/Gnome like IBMs via voice does for windows? I think having a general api so any engine can do, but actually shipping Corel linux with a version of Dragon speak configured would be a great way to distinguish your product!
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
I personally think that the interview section is one of the real highlights of slashdot. Where else can one get to question such leading players as Steve Wozniak, or the Queen's webmaster, for example? Or Cowpland?
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
I've been watching Corel for a long time. I used to use corel-draw occasionally at major version ~2, and have really liked the product since. I've seen the company aquire other (fine) products -- for instance, ventura publisher, and word perfect, and now I've seen the company embrace linux.
That's all wonderful, and your company has lots of good ideas. What I'd like to know, is, do you have a focus -- a set of goals that you'd like too achieve? What does corel want to offer people in the end, and what sets you apart from some other company offering similar products?
Obviously there's an "ideal" marketplace for your products, a target audience, and a focal-point, or type of offering you'd like to give.
So, how long do you think it will be until we see that "ideal" marketplace, who is your target audience, and where is your focus?
With the recent insider trading issue surrouning you and Corel, along with your less than subltle choice of cars, home and evening wear, do you feel as others do that the playboy image you maintain is not in line with the serious operation of a major software firm?
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
Corel is actually pretty heavily into XML and SVG, and WordPerfect was one of the first programs to support SGML. Check out this page for more info on Corel's support of open standards.
(No, I don't work for Corel)
This page states that the product is currently in development.
As Corel Linux started as a recent fork of the Debian Project, Corel's relationship with Debian is highly indicative of the corporate world's ability to coexist with the Linux Community.
How would you describe the (sometimes tense) relationship your company has with that project? What is the future of that relationship?
And specifically, what is Corel doing to return the gains that the Debian community has provided your company?
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Wouldn't Corel endorse their own version of Linux......(Corel-Linux a Debian based distro) over RedHat? Or are they going to focus their efforts on desktop apps?
Rick B.
Back in the Early Days(TM) WordPerfect embraced OS/2 as their OS of choice and suffered the consequences. Do you feel that adopting Linux as your "OS of the Future" can seriously affect Corel/WordPerfect products marketshare or is this largely a public relations move?
If this is not a PR move, when do you see the rest of your product line ported to Linux?
Actually you cleared up the point I was trying to make!
*print* == *make* is what I meant. The point you made about business predates money is exactly what I was trying to state. Money is just a means that is used to show a worth of one product/service compared to another. Business should not make/print money, but they should provide a good and worthy product/service. Thus this makes the Business worth more. Money should not be the purpose of a business. But the worthiness of the business is important. Unfortunalely, we forget this and start sacrificing the product/service for the buck. This is what happened to the US car industry.
Money without business, ummm, isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
This is my point. Money, itself is worthless. But a product/service has value. Money is just a tool (that the goverment gives) to measure this value. No the goverment does not give you the value, just the tool.
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
A famous economist (which I can't remember the name -- but was still famous ;) once said
"Companies do not make money. Companies make shoes!"
No, companies do not make money, the government does. Companies make products/services and trade these products/services for money. The statement above was stating that the economy is in trouble if we focus on only the profit and not the product!
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
I'm sorry to ask such a personal question, but given Corel's already somewhat shaky financial situation, how do you justify your own extravagance? For example, there's the million dollar dress mentioned in an earlier post, the notorious mansion, and the Porsches. Wouldn't you be serving the company better without these expenses?
I know that John Roth, CEO of Nortel Networks, has made noise about the problems of being a Canadian buisness. I would like to know how you feel your location affects your buisness, especially considering the global nature of Linux and what, if anything, you do to keep your Ottawa based employees from moving south.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
First off, I have to say I am the PROUD owner
:)
:)
of 155,000 shares of Corel. If they do it right, they can totally take the crown away from Microsoft.
I feel I know what the strategy is, so my question is geared towards what I think the right course of action is.. and at the very least this will be a suggestion to Corel for a possible market position.
It is my feeling that Corel Linux can be perfectly positioned to be THEE PERFECT BRIDGE from Windows to Linux.
Even though Corel has been releasing alot of press-releases about Graph-On, and I understand that WINE isn't exactly ready for mass consumption yet by the Newbie users... It is my hope and question that Corel recognizes WINE has THEE MOST important step in Windows-Linux Transition. TO not need a single Microsoft program, that is the main goal. People are afraid to give up Windows and move totally to Linux for the simple reason that some of their favorite programs (like ICQ, and a bunch of video games) simply don't run under Linux. People however don't know yet that Wine can even run, almost perfectly, the most complex apps (Games with DirectX 3D, etc) under Linux. This goes beyond simply porting Corel's Windows apps over to Linux.
And so my question is, is Corel's interest in WINE above and beyond porting their own applications over to Linux?
And if so, has Corel looked at helping the development of Wine along to support the most popular of windows API functions (and in so doing, enabling sooner rather then later support of the most popularly used Apps)?
Lastly, has Corel decided on when they will market Corel Linux on the point that it, with Wine, can run your popular Windows applications TODAY... without the famous blue-screens?
Thanks for your time.. I wish Corel MUCH success, even if I didn't own all that stock in the company..
-Matthew
Will paradox be included in your office? If not could you please explain the roadblocks that prevent it from being ported. Linux desperately needs a RAD database aplication tool.
War is necrophilia.
Mr. Cowpland,
Why have you chosen not to change the name of
your product from "Corel Linux" to "Corel
GNU/Linux" for reasons outlined at
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
?
I am particularly curious how you justify basing
your product on Debian GNU/Linux, yet calling
it "Corel Linux".
And, as a follow up, considering the ARM's low power consumption, would you consider creating an ARM-based laptop?
"The simplest solution is to ignore your dead children."
What do you think about this thread (including the article)?
Red Herring Looks at Corel's Linux Strategy
Thank you and...
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
You spelled KanaDUH wrong.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Last I checked, neither of these are supported in the kernel nor in any distribution (ok, fuzzy on USB but have been on the lookout for winmodem support).
Are there any plans to provide winmodem support in your distro so I can make my laptop useful under Linux?
Thanks in advance
Guy Montag
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Recent IPOs for Linux related companies have shown that the market is really excited about this new and rapidly growing technology. Are there any plans to spin Corel's Linux products off into a separate company - trading separately on the exchanges - in order to unlock the market value of your Linux investments?
Having played with the downloadable version of Corel Linux (I like fast 'net access) I've been very very pleasantly surprised with Corel Linux although disappointed that the deluxe version is not to be available in the UK. I'm wondering when the other linux distro's are going to be able to share in this - so bluntly when are corel going to release their modifications to GPL'd code? M@T :O)
Matt Thompson - Actuality - Insert product here.
On the same note, I would seriously like to see the old WP5.1 open sourced. It is still one of the most useful word precessors I have used, and I would love to use it for a console editor.
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
And ATT Canada's Headquarters are in Halifax. Business is out to make money. Many companies are based in Bermuda too, but when you have a secretary, phone, and mail box in Bermuda and 1000 employees on Wall St. Where is the company really? I would say NY, others will disagree.
Will Linux versions of the CorelDraw graphics suite be released?
A better question would have been:
I actually live a couple of blocks away from Cowpland's house. My question would be:
What do you think about the ability of Open Source applications to penetrate into the Windows market.
Do you see products like GIMP competing meaningfully with products like Photo-Paint on Windows or other non-open platforms ?
The cost of Open Source (i.e. free) is a positive factor in that people who don't want to pay can get products for free, and a negative factor in that people feel that they get what they pay for. What do you think the overall effect of Open Source's cost will have on Open Source's penetration into the market ?
Lastly, in a market where users are accustomed to easy installation wizards etc. How valuable is having the source code to most of your customers ?
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking to split up Microsft into two or three smaller firms. Do you support this demand by the US DOJ?
Marjo Wycam, Master of the Programming Arts
I hope to correct the injustice I just inflicted on Mr. Behrendsen with this post-- while moderating I had inadvertently assigned his post a Troll rating(which it obviously doesn't deserve) My sincere and humble apologies... --BrettJB
Smell that? You smell that? Burning karma, son. Nothing in the world smells like that...
So far, Nitrozac hasn't featured you as a character in her cartoon After Y2K.
Considering she had included such geeky Linux celebrities as Linus Torvalds, Eric Raymond, and Rob and Hemos, does this bug you, or effect your business decisions in any way, and how far would you go in order to get her to include you?
In fact, isn't it true that the whole Corel Linux thing is just an attempt to be immortalized in After Y2K?
How about some insider tips. Is now a good time to buy Corel stock?
;-)
Even with my name in the Draw 9 credits as a beta tester, I wonder how life working for Corel is. After reading Microserfs I imagine most large software companies run into the same problem of keeping employees happy. And please don't cop out and say you do it by working on the most exiting products!
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
Why does Corel not include both the competing KDE and GNOME desktops? Linux is about choice and by forcing one system on the user you are severely limiting to power and benefit of linux. The best course of action is to follow the lead of RedHat and (most?) other distributions and install both sets of libraries and allow the use to easily chose their setup at installation time.
Actually, the professional edition comes with Paradox, Corel's RDBMS
Have you noticed how you have to restart KPanel when you change the date/time?
Or how samba services are temrinated everytime you change a setting, add or remove a share?
What ever happened to dynamic updates? Shutting down a service to add a share is unacceptable.
To my knowledge Corel has done an incredible amount of work on the Wine project and really helped to bolster development there. Seems like I remember the Wine group calling their contributions "very significant."
If Corel does not open source the whole Office suit, how about the core parts of the product? This could be very helpful in many ways. It gives a base for open source people to work with and modifiy and allows Corel to focus on the latest bells and whistels. As these new features age then they could be open sourced also.
If Corel does not open source the whole office suite, how about the core parts of the product? This could be very helpful in many ways. It gives a base for open source people to work with and modifiy and allows Corel to focus on the latest bells and whistels. As these new features age then they could be open sourced also.
As everyone knows, Corel has recently embraced Linux. My question is, have you embraced Open Source? If so, will you open source Corel applications (both Linux-based and other platforms) such as CorelDRAW, WordPerfect, Ventura, Photo-Paint and the others?
---
First, I have a great deal of respect for you and your company. I feel COREL has been making improvements to its software and I wish you further future success....
To that end, it is my humble opinion that the way to make Corel Linux as big as M$ Windoze and not background noise like OS/2, Java OS, AOL OS, or any of the other attempts to win the OS "King of the Mountain" game is simple: GAME SUPPORT!
Please give consideration to either:
1. Buying Loki Games for perhaps a million shares of Corel (Once you announce intent to buy them, the value of Corel Stock should increase, there by increasing the value of the deal)
OR...
2. Develop your own "Gaming Division".
As I understand it, Corel intends to dominate the HOME desktop. You received a very favorable review from Cnet.com. This is good, but don't stop there. The reason M$ has "Age of Empires" & "Flight Simulator" is not to make money (although I'm sure that make some profit) but to UNDERSTAND gaming needs. Home Computers need Game Support. Even if there was a poll that said "43% of American households do not intend to play games on their home PC", the poll would not tell you that the majority of those homes also have their son, neighbor, or some other Geek friend advise them on to what to buy. That Geek that is doing the recommendation does play games so what he will recommend is what he knows, which will be a platform with Game Support.
My question is: What does Corel intend to do about Game Support for its distribution of Linux?
My second humble recommendation would be to encourage AOL to develop a Linux Port. Then you could distribute AOL & Corel Linux CD-ROMs in the Magazines, get a beach head in the Home PC Market, and then make your money selling your peerless software (CorelDraw, etc) in a market without M$ competition. The other advantage would be: If Corel Linux was the OS, AOL was the network connection, and TW was the content provider through a Cable Modem, you could develop a very nice ASP situation where the typical home user would pay a flat $50 bucks a month for Internet access and over the network use of WP, Corel Draw, etc.
This would:
1. Lower your cost of distribution since there would be no CDs to ship and AOL could provide "Online Documentation"
2. Lower your tech support costs since Corel & AOL would take care of patches etc on the Application Servers and you'd know that there would be not M$ caused glitches.
3. Allow you to make true penetration into the home market while making millions of people's lives easier and making a tidy profit in the mean time.
My question is: Do you know if AOL plans to develop a Linux Port soon?
I know this is off topic, but whatever happened to the Q&A with Larry Augustin?
I used to dual boot Linux and NT with the NT loader just fine. All you have to do is add add stuff into the cfg file for it--it's all in the HOWTO :)
Here's my DeCSS mirror, where's yours?
As a side question, my wife and had been WP users since 5.0a (for DOS!), but have recently switched to Office, the standard in our offices. Do you think it's possible to lure people back from Office?
I am a Debian user for a year, and when I installed Corel Linux I was amazed by the installation process and the bundle coming with it. You guys did a good job on making Linux easier for the home user.
What is, in your opinion, the next step that has to be taken by Unix in general, and Linux in particular so that we have a real competitor to Microsoft on the workstation and at home?
Looking for a great online backup: Green Backup
Corel GNU/Linux is aimed towards the consumer desktop market, perhaps with an office slant. How successful (profitable?) has your product been in that market and what do you predict for the future of Corel GNU/Linux?
Do you see Corel GNU/Linux as having a major role in defeating that other company's desktop monopoly or is your product aimed at more of a niche market?
Or, do you think that processors such as the Sun MAJC can increase Java performance enough to make it acceptable to the average consumer?
For that matter, do people care about office suites in Java anymore? (It seems Sun does...)
And finally, Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux beta has already been delayed once. When will the beta program start? Will it start? Or will the linux version fade into the dead-code dust?
Visit
The highest profits in end user software have always been in the business to business market. The market for Linux desktops in businesses is currently zero, and there are (apparently) no service providers that do Linux desktops. What are Corels thoughts about this, what is the strategy Corel is deploying to get Linux on desktops in business environments?
However, after reading more about the under performance of its stock, as well as some (ahem!) extravagance of management, I was taken aback and decided not to pursue either one (investment and employment).
After the stock sky rocketed and then fell back again, I still have my doubts, some of which were sounded here on slashdot a few months ago.
I would like to ask you: How is Corel as a company to work for and to own as a stock? Is Linux all your direction, or is it riding the Linux wave, just as the Java Office suite?
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
What do you see the core competency of Corel being? I have been following Corel since the early nineties and started with CorelDraw 2; it seems as though Corel has shifted its focus many times over the years. Graphics -> Office Suites -> NCs -> now OSs. Is this just Microsoft bashing or does Corel actually have an overall vision.
Don't you think that with the appearance of User Friendly linux distribution and programs, linux will become more and more M$ like ? In the way that newbies will no more look at what is doing the kernel or things less User Friendly. And so, do you think it's a bad or a good thing for the future of Linux ?
-- Life wouldn't be this fun without Kenny.
Do you see Corel's Office suite being as ubiquitous as Microsoft Office (on Windows desktops) when the highly coveted Linux-On-The-Desktop become mainstream? Do you see Microsoft porting their Office suite to Linux?
how could you release a distro and maintain that you're committed to open source development, yet your sources are incomplete (kde in particular) and won't compile because of missing "corel.h" files and then ignore emails asking for these? are you really more interested in cashing in on the latest buzzword? also according to your "corel public license" a section mentions any changes made to your sources must be documented in the file and through a Changelog file, yet the sources you provide are uncommented and without changelogs.... breaking your own license, do you understand your distro is a mess for developers?
We are a small computer graphics shop mainly dealing with printed material (but also web material). Guess that we where happy when we heard about Corels Linux commitment. Since we like the power of UNIX/Linux we try to stay focused on programs that are able to run under either Solaris or Linux. Up until now this has limited us to used
Still we have to use Illustrator 8, Corel Draw/PhotoPaint 8, Photoshop 5, PageMaker 5 under either Win or Mac to enable modern and easy color management and compatibility with print shops. (Well most print shops are Adobe only at least where I live).
The questions that comes to mind is:
How powerful is Corels Linux commitment? We have heard about Corel Draw being ported to Linux, but what about the current status / release date? Is worth while to wait for Corel 9 on Linux or should we just go out and buy the Windows version. The same question also applies to PhotoPaint and Ventura. Further more how good will the color functions and font technologies be? Will the be as good as Corel Draw, etc. under Windows?
Since we are dedicated Gimp users, how good will Corels Gimp compatibility be (i.e to load and save Gimp native xcf files)? This is very essential since Gimp is the biggest and best GNU/OSS/Linux/UNIX program to manipulate and create bitmap graphics within.
Since most print shops are Adobe only Corel - Adobe compatibility is of big importance. In Corel Draw 8 the AI export function was more or less unusable. Most of the time you had to do a lot of work by hand. Are those functions better in later versions of Corel (yes I have read about the work done on Corel 9)?
Kindest Regards GUM
One of the less mentioned phenomenons of Open Source
is that so few developers get so much done. (It's
probably not mentioned much by advocates because they
don't want emphasis placed on the fact that there are small
numbers of developers.) Except for a few large scale coordinated
efforts e.g. Debian, small clusters of late night hackers are churning out
more (useful) code than their corporate counterparts.
Could you give us an idea as to the number or ratio of coders,
content developers, salespeople, etc. assigned to CDL
in particular and also your average application? Do you think corporations can learn/are learning what makes a hoobyist tick and apply it in the workplace?
Someone had to do it.
One of the less mentioned phenomenons of Open Source
is that so few developers get so much done. (It's
probably not mentioned much by advocates because they
don't want emphasis placed on the fact that there are small
numbers of developers.) Except for a few large scale coordinated
efforts e.g. Debian, small clusters of late night hackers are churning out
more (useful) code than their corporate counterparts.
Could you give us an idea as to the number or ratio of coders,
content developers, salespeople, etc. assigned to CDL
in particular and also your average application? Do you think corporations can learn/are learning what makes a hobbyist tick and apply it in the 9-5 workplace?
Someone had to do it.
WordPerfect has its own internal scripting language, plus PerfectScript. Ensuring that PerfectScript remains at the forefront of WordPerfect's scripting capabilities is extremely important to the existing user base, many of whom like myself have tens of thousands of dollars invested in PerfectScript macros. Many of us were dismayed recently when Corel added VBA to WordPerfect Office 2000 at the seeming expense of PerfectScript integration with new features. With 35 million present WordPerfect users dependent on the existing scripting languages implemented in the suite, I for one hope that Corel does NOT sacrifice our loyalty and commitment to the platform by scrapping PerfectScript in favor of more trendy programming languages.
Please moderate this one up. That is an extremely important question. E.g., does Corel plan to port Corel Linux and Corel's applications to the StrongARM and PPC processors? How about the Transmeta?
That was Caldera, not Corel.
Corel has a white paper on XML implementation in WordPerfect 9 (PDF, about 500Kb). http://www.corel.com/Office2000/evaluation_essenti als.htm
Basically, WP 9 allows you to compose natively in XML, as opposed to Microsoft Office's limited XML export capability that uses proprietary tags.
As a big player in the Linux field which is growing at an exponential rate both in terms of product and visibilities what do you think, from your position, needs to be done about the exploitation of the markets through IPO's building up hype (examples of which seem to becoming more regular as the stakes rise out of proportion to the knowledge of the financial markets.) Do you think there is a solution and could this damage the reputation of what until now has been (and still is in the majority of cases) a solid product backed by reputable and honest players in the market?
Working for the (other) man
I have read, Corel plans on a good chunk of its income over the next 5 years to come from Linux. Can you give us an idea of what Corels plans are to bring this about.
"Our products just aren't engineered for security,"
-Brian Valentine,VP in charge of MS Windows Development
This is not meant to flame but ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MINDS? Python is the most braindead language I have ever seen. Reminds me of Miranda but with crappy type system and programs are three times as long as there Perl equivelants.
Of all the languages to build into an office suite (IMHO) python would be the worst. Maybe just beaten by UniCOMAL.
All interpreted languages are abstractions over Lisp
However, on the desktop front, Linux seems to be adopted only by "geeks". Some people think this is by the lack of ease of use, lack of ease of installation, and lack of applications.
What do you think is main cause that more people don't adopt Linux as their desktop OS?
Related Question for Dr. Cowpland: On the question of licensing Corel Office... It seems that any company that seriously wants to take on MS will need at least 3 things. * OS * Programming Languages * Office Apps Given Suns recent purchase of StarOffice, it would seen that RedHat would be on the war path for the third item in that list right about now. (Having just gotten Cygnus and HKS). If RedHat made you an offer to purchase or license your Office Suite from you - would you consider it or reject it outright?
From someone who knows a good deal about both I can tell you that Python is *absolutely* the best way to go. It would immeadiately add (a la MS VBA) a powerful OO scripting language to Corel's office suite....
Something that would allow network admins to keep an image on the network of what a healthy installation looks like (for each app) and then be able to repair and dynamically reinstall programs that become damaged.
Anything like this in the works from corel??
Is there any chance that Corel Linux and Wordperfect be offered to schools for free? RedHat is doing that in the UK and it would be nice to see an easy-to-install, useful Linux setup being offered to educational institutions. One package that the non-tech types that are usually in charge of school technology can install without a headache. Remember, the kids that will be using your free Linux will someday be the ones making the decisions in the corporate world (and that's not really that far off from now). That's how Apple Computer got its initial market share. It just forgot to make the products useful for business, too. Besides, the PR of helping schools out would be well worth its weight. And its just a decent thing to do, too! WIN-WIN and everyone is happy.
Most of the big US PC makers have equity interests in Red Hat. Do you expect that this will make it more difficult to get these PC makers to factory install CLOS/WP suite?
What will be the next free large software application for Linux after Wordperfect 8? Thanks.
Would Corel consider promoting its Java version of Office if hardware platforms like Transmeta are able to run it at full speed? Does Corel consider this a valuable advantage over Sun's position (the unfinished StarOffice for Java)? Do you consider the offerings from Corel and Newlix to be competitive with MS Outlook client / Exchange server on the basis of calendering and server-stored email? Are you addressing a different niche?
As a frequent poster to the CLOS newsgroup, a moderator of a CLOS mailing list and a regestered owner of the Deluxe version of CLOS, I see one outstanding concern for the Corel Linux Operating system. That would be product support. While the box touts ease of installation, which lures new users to want to try it, often times the install is anything but easy. It would seem that Corel is ill prepared for the huge popularity of this system, and the support lines are over worked, and often leave users feeling left out in the cold. Have these issues been addressed? What do you intend to do to let you're customers know that you recognize this as a pressing issue, and are dealing with it?
Wow that is strange, I visited Corel in Ottawa in August, sure looked like a headquarters to me....
Many larger software companies contract for some of their work to be done by independent contractors or other firms. However, others choose to stem the flux of work by hiring temporary employees by hiring via a third party. When the project is done, they keep some but let the others go.
There are advantages to both, as well as the traditional in-house development. Where do you feel the software industry is headed?
I am a developer Using Paradox for e-commerce. Will ObjectPAL be supported under Linux? It would make sense & would allow a lot of applications to be directly converted.
How are you going to stop people from using the GPLed or opensourced sections of your distribution without paying for them?
One of the things Corel seems to be working hard on is integration between Windows and Linux, as can be shown in the work they put into Wine. This puts Corel somewhere along the business-home continuum, where one wouldn't think that Unix would be a good choice.
While it's true that all the decent free operating systems (at least that I can think of) are Unix based, have you ever thought of searching out, creating, or perhaps heavily modifying Linux to become less Unix-like and more desktop-like? Gnome and KDE can be nice, but always you have to carry around some of the weight of Unix, like permissions, which make almost no sense on the desktop. Basically, has Corel ever thought of giving us free software users a decent alternative to Unix?
You're correct that XML support was explicitly stated to be a part of WP/Win v9. However, it didn't start there -- there was full SGML support (and thus support for conforming XML docs with DTDs) in version 8, released (if memory serves me right) back in mid-1997.
Because the Linux WP8 was a port of the Unix codebase but was still tied to the development plan for WP8/Win, I spoke to one of the senior development managers a few months before the WP8/Linux version was released and inquired about SGML/XML support. I was told: (a) it would not be present in the Linux WP8, (b) it was purely a development/porting time-related business decision, and (c) they would port that code if there was user demand for it. (I told him in a semi-humorous manner that I was a user and I demanded it.)
My question is intended to elicit a more pointed response than the generic "We like XML" answers I've seen so far. The doc you referenced is a good starting point, but doesn't really address the issue of SGML/XML support on Linux, or its ubiquity in Corel apps in any real depth. Any more insight, Mr. Cowpland?
I think not...(*poof*)
As a user of Quattro Pro (spreadsheet) for years I have been frustrated by the increase in bugs in newer versions, and all I can get is a run-around from your support.
WordPerfect Office2000 is totally full of bugs, even after downloading 2 Service Packs totalling 84MB.
I was finally told by your tech support to uninstall it and install the previous version 8!
In light of this poor quality control why should I buy your Linux product?
Maurice W. Hilarius Voice: (778) 347-9907
Corel produces lots of applications to produce printed output. However, the printing support in WP8 is essentially unchanged from WP6 for Unix, and is extremely limited. For instance, printing to "Passthru Postscript" printers is limited to 300 DPI, black and white.
What efforts are Corel taking to improve printing in their products? Will you be accepting whatever print capabilities WINE gives you, and letting WP (not scheduled to be ported to WINE by WPO2k/Linux) languish, or are you working to improve printing and support of new printers in some way?
Here's my Q:
Do you plan on supporting other platforms other than the Intel platform? Would you consider these platforms to be a viable market, or fringe players at best?
-----
".sig,
As I'm sure is obvious by now, many people would like to see Micros~1's comeuppance in the form of an actual court finding of guilt and wrongdoing against the company. While the DoJ's anti-trust suit has served this purpose fairly well, many hoped Corel's suit would drive the point further home in more concrete terms. But the case has been settled out of court without a final judgment and for terms which, from publicly available information, are barely significant. It's developments of this kind that allow the disingenuous to claim, "Micros~1 has never been convicted of any wrongdoing."
From outward appearances, your case looked strong. Even if Micros~1 appealed a judgment against them, my youthful naivate believes that Corel could have obtained superior settlement terms after a judgment had been entered. Without going into specifics, what factors weigh in a decision to continue to litigate a strong case, or to settle out of court prior to judgment?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Will we see applications (and distributions) developed by Corel for the Arm and other non-x86 distributions in the near future? Love to get the wordeperfect suite on my netwinder (purchased when it was 'Corel Netwinder' and not rebel.com) Also, what plans do you have for the netwinder and Arm architcture in general in light of your stake in rebel.com?
By my reckoning, all that AOL lacks is:
Let's say that Steve Case comes to you with a sweet buyout offer. Do you sell, or gracefully decline? And if Corel does become part of the AOL Empire, would you stay on?
- Richie
Obviously, open source is not a reasonable option for every product, particularly if large portions of revenue are derived from sales, but has Corel ever considered an open source release of products which are not good revenue producers?
Logic ... merely enables one to be wrong with authority. -- Doctor Who
Corel Linux, as well as other distros and projects, are trying to make their interfaces similar to Windows, as well as specifically targeting the Windows user. As long as that eases some of the newbie fears without compromising the power of Linux, then that's a Good Thing. However, it seems to me that at some point on the road to World Domination, a critical mass will be reached where a Windowish interface will be seen as passe and limiting. Where does Corel Linux fit into a future that is not dominated by Microsoft?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
I was going to put this up as a question but Dr Evil, got me to look a litte further.
Given that I don't have exact trade dates for MC's trades, other than 'mid-August' I give this stock analysis.
Examining CORL in August:
CORL closed on 02-AUG @ 4 5/16 and on 31-AUG closed @ 5 3/4. Altogether not a bad 1 month gain.
The high close for the month was 6 3/8 on 30-AUG. The low close was 3 3/4 on 5-AUG.
The stocks low since 02-AUG was 4 3/8 on 18-AUG, down from the higest of the previous 10 trading
days close of 4 7/8 on 16-AUG. So at best he saved himself 1/2 a point on the "insider trades". Not a bad VERY short term short, given massive quantities. Looking at a longer term however...
why not wait until 10-JAN-00 when CORL closed at 20 1/16 (a 52 week high) to sell? [14-JAN close of 20 5/8 up from a recent low of 19 1/16 and a Y2K low of 15 1/4]
Looking at this MC should be convicted of a seveal crimes.' 1) Needing cash for some purpose, 2) lacking foresite in knowing his company was on the way out of the depths of stock hell, and 3) poor market prognostication (as most of us are).
About the biggest 'crime' I see here is (2). The other possibilty is that the Canuck version of the SEC is looking for some publicity, or they are upset that the Corel Centre is about to (saddly) loose its prime tenant to some schmuck US city?
Hmmm, if MC made all this money, why is Yashin still not signed (other than the fact he's ignoring a vaild contract)?
Fins Up, and to the Left... Any dive you come up from with air in reserve was a great dive. Nothing but bubbles left o
What ever happened to the Larry Augustine bonus interview?
---
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
I think you are sadly mistaken if you believe Corel's headquarters are still in Canada. Several years ago Corel moved their world headquarters to Dublin, Ireland for tax and wage reasons.
Hmmm... I seemed to have touched a nerve. The documentation in question is on the screen during the 6.1 install from CD. The message says something to the effect that you should NOT install to the MBR if you are trying to dual-boot with NT. Instead, you should install lilo on the boot partition, and make a boot disk. Corel's loader just installs next to NT without a word, and boots into this fancy screen that lets you choose (semi-graphically) from the various boot options.
I'll tell you what *I* see. I see Corel Linux dual-booting my Windows NT system with a better boot-manager than NT. Red Hat 6.1 documentation tells you that if you want to dual-boot an NT system, you have to boot from floppy!
Corel has a video-mode control widget (open source) which is nicely integrated into the KDE control panel. They also have some very nice (don't know if this is Debian or Corel) Samba integration, to the point where it's easier for me to deal with the NT network at work than it is for the NT users!
Continuing this statement.
If you don't, then why?
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
I noticed that the Wordperfect Office bundle does not include a database product ?
How does Corel intend to fill this 'gap' in its suite ? It seems to me that any newcomer to the area would simply be overwhelmed by Access on Windows, but on Linux and other platforms (Such as Apple) there may be more opportunity.
What about using an open source product, such as PostgreSQL ? Naturally this is already included in many Linux distributions, but you could include it in your Office suite as a way of giving customers on other platforms greater value and leveling the playing field with Microsoft Office.
(Interactive PostgreSQL for Windows is available at http://www.zeos.dn.ua/download/ipg sql-latest.zip. It seems to be mostly a way of interacting with PostgreSQL. I am not clear on its license.)
Don't post innacurate information
If you do, I swear by my pretty floral bonnet I will end you.
Why stay Canadian is the question.
:-)
Perhaps Corel should consider relocating their headquarters - and operations - elsewhere for the same exact reasons you yourself are tempted. Namely, money.
IIRC, not long ago the Canadian government agreed to buy Microsoft's software exclusively, shutting COrel out from such deals for years to come. There's little in Canada in form of synergy between technology companies (which are practically all south of the border anyway) and this also reduces the workforce mobility; and I'm not referring to the arctic climate versus, say, the tropical one in California in terms of motor oil viscosity.
Back to finances. Have you noticed that every time a Canadian stock analyst mentions Corel or Linux, they attach the word "roadkill" in the sentence. When Corel lost to MS in the Windows Office "battle" (where one side happened to have all the weapons) those analysts took it to their cellular level memory never to forget what a loser Corel "is". And every time the press needs a comment on Corel, guess who they'll turn to if not these Canadian specialists...
The Canadian version of SEC in Ontario, the OSC, is hellbent on putting Cowpland behind bars (and not of Greyhound variety mind you) because the man sold some shares below $10 and a month later the stock price tumbled due to worse than expected earnings. The same stock is now valued at ~$20 after hitting 40's recently, and with potential to hit $100 or more in a year or two as the MS monopoly self-destructs. The shares Cowpland sold back then have made a lot of money to people not surnamed Cowpland, but OSC needs to prove that they can nail someone, anyone.
What comes to the "nearly twice the pay, and lower cost of living in some US cities" reasons tempting you to emigrate, wouldn't it also mean that were Corel to move out of Canada they, too, would be more competitive in attracting talent? After all, why do the companies in south afford to offer better pay packages in the first place?
My question to Mr. Cowpland would be: Have you ever considered leaving behind the provicial mindset of Canada, relocating Corel's headquarters to sunny California while also moving most of the operations there and elsewhere around the world, e.g. in India where talent is plentiful yet labor costs lower? Would Corel not become more competitive by having development crews working around the globe for the 24/7 effect?
(I can hear Tom Waits croaking "California, here I come..." already
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
How important do you think Windows compatibility is to the future of Linux on the Desktop? Do you think that Linux can be a viable alternative running only Linux apps, or do you think that Windows compatibility projects like WINE will be necessary to advance Linux?
The cake is a pie
I look at Corel as setting the example for software vendors who are thinking about porting their software to Linux. I assume that Wordperfect was not that difficult to port, since you already had UNIX versions. If I'm not mistaken, other software that you are porting is relying heavily on Wine libraries. What is it about Linux that makes you pursue this method of porting as opposed to producing "native" Linux code? I think the Wine effort is great to allow users to use software that they have already purchased under Linux, but it would be nice to see large companies such as yours porting natively. Is that too much to hope for?
Criminalize spam and telemarketing!
From what I have seen in media outlets, Corel Linux seems to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Linuxplanet notes, "... there's no reason why hundreds of thousands of Windows-based PCs can't be replaced by running Corel Linux..." This is high praise. Is it a goal of Corel's to use Linux to compete directly with Microsoft and Windows for the desktop market. Also, what makes this so different from previous attempts to get at Microsoft? (ie: Novell DOS, OS/2, etc.)
No, you're thinking of the former CEO of a shoe maker in Lynn, MAssachusettes, who told a reporter "I am not in the business of making shoes. I am in the business of making money for my shareholders." That was the quote I was working with.
See, all companies have one goal in mind: To make money for their owners, the shareholders. When that is given utmost priority, all other issues - safe working conditions and fair wages, ensuring software integrity, ensuring safe disposal of hazardous materials - become secondary. The products and services themselves become secondary. MAKING MONEY BECOMES THE PRIMARY GOAL.
Oh, and the government is in the business of helping private enterprise make money. We're still 5.something trillion dollars in the hole, so don't think the government has cash to spare.
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
Photopaint is by far my favorite bitmap editing program. At home I keep a windose box going (an old 200MHz Pentium / 32M), just so I can run PhotoPaint and Quicken.
:).
Will there be Linux versions of Corel Photopaint and Corel Draw? I could live without Quicken, but I cannot live without Photopaint. I would also like to use it on my more capable hardware. You would definitely have one sale
Do you see Corel working to provide support on other platforms of Linux, such as PowerPC, Alpha, etc...? If so, do you think that opening the source of Corel Office/Corel Linux would aid porting efforts? Or would you prefer to do something like Netscape/Mozilla, releasing a fully functional open source project but creating your own brand of the Office suite/OS? Also, where do you stand on porting the rest of Corel's apps to Linux?
This is my polite way of asking, "Have you jumped on the Linux bandwagon as a cynical attempt to save Corel, or have you really become a believer in Open Source? If so, prove it."
---
Red Hat 6.1 documentation tells you that if you want to dual-boot an NT system, you have to boot from floppy!
Err... Where exactly does it say so? It's a bug in the docs (and one I don't want to see in 6.2 again). You can dual-boot Red Hat Linux and NT without problems.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
The file manager and stuff have actually been released already (somewhere on ftp.corel.com). Unfortunately, they heavily depend on Corel's modifications to Qt and kdelibs; porting it to work on "normal" systems will be a lot of work. (And considering KDE 2.0 will be out soon, I don't think anyone wants to put that much work into it)
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
you always have to carry around some of the weight of Unix, like permissions, which make almost no sense on the desktop
/etc files. /etc, /bin, /sbin, /usr/sbin or /usr/bin.
I disagree absolutely. If I ever were to marry, maybe even someone who isn't familiar with Linux, I probably wouldn't want to have her mess up my
If I ever were to get kids, I'd definitely not let them tamper with anything
I'd let them use Linux as a normal user though... No problems at all.
Much the same holds true for businesses - why would I want a "This stupid box has a spell checker, so why doesn't it correct me when I mistype my password"-type of secretary to mess with config files, or delete vital files (Those of you who work in support/help desks/...: How many times did you have to fix the "I never use that C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM stuff, so I deleted it to save some space" problem?)
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Just in case you want to take a break from serious questioning:
Was your wife's dress really worth a million dollars? No, really?
Where do you find such a dress? I don't really want one, but the concept kind of amazes me.
-Noiz,
Who's in a weird mood.
---------
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I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If you had to rank these three in order of priority, where would you place them and how is Corel Linux tuned to meet these priorities?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Are you concerned about the slow speed of Debian's release cycles? How do you plan to promote your Linux distribution over competitors who have more up to date packages on their distributions?
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
How much difference (if any) does it make being a Canadian-based company competing against mostly US-based companies? Does it make a big difference to you that the Canadian dollar is relatively low, or that Canadian taxes are relatively high, for example?
11.0010010000111111011010101000100010000101101000
Redhat and Debian are setting some large stands for GNU/Linux distributions with Internet installs, GUI installs, and GUI configuration utilities. How do see Corel linux challenging these distributions, and creating your own defacto standards?
Justen Stepka
ManishIShah asked about "an industrial class Office package that has perl at its core."
;) that I'll be corrected if there is an obvious reason that this is a silly question, but from what little I know of the two languages (enough to write a Hello World, not much else yet -- I'm on a learning curve tricycle!) it seems like Python code is easier to read. In a company with lots of office-application customization, this seems like a very important attribute. Granted, documentation can make perl (or any language) more reader-friendly, but I think if I had to read, maintain, update, etc. I would rather be using Python.
... how about that?
I would like to echo the question, but substitute Python for perl. I'm sure
So
timothy
(p.s. thanks for pushing Linux for so long, Mr. Cowpland -- I liked your CompuTalk interview several months ago!)
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
When will see that the Win 32, Linux version of the Corel Products will be released at same time?
--
Joel - www.game-over.ch - Jesus rules!
Regards,
January Weiner
One thing I read about in reviews of the Corel Linux OS is that Corel uses a modified version of the Qt 1.4x library. How are these changes licensed, and what's Troll Tech relationship with them? Also, is it planned to incorporate these changes in sort of a "Qt 1.45", or will these changes remain "Corel only"?
On the same topic, how do Corel plan to realease their enhanced File Manager and other tools, if you plan to release them to the open at all?
--
Marcelo Vanzin
Marcelo Vanzin
I find it dismaying how often 'opensource' is used like a verb lately. It's as if people think that 'opening the source' is some magical act that makes the code portable and buildable from a tarball.
Mozilla is an illustration of the problems in "open sourcing" something: The Mozilla folks eventually recognized that it was a loss and just reimplemented the project as an open-from-the-start project.
When I hear about someone "opensourcing" something previously closed, I visualize someone with a sharp knife "opening" a dead fish.
One of the most attractive features in the recent versions of WordPerfect for Windows is the support for SGML/XML documents, so I was very disappointed to find that it wasn't in the Linux version when it was released. One of the methods by which Microsoft maintains a strong hold on the office productivity software market is the maintenance of a model that uses proprietary data storage formats. This model is dependent on the assumption of the user that s/he must select a proprietary format to match their product choice, and the common assumption that it's a hassle to switch back and forth. Use of SGML/XML does away with that, making it easier to switch products, as well as easier to share textual information. (This is a primary motivator for why MS is so actively involved in XML development; it would otherwise represent a tremendous loss of control for them.) So you can see why, despite being grateful for WordPerfect on Linux, I was a little burned up about losing the features in which I found the most overall value.
What is Corel's/your overall approach to XML/SGML? Will we see XML document support in WordPerfect for Linux? How about in other products where the fit seems quite natural, such as Trellix (for object-based structured/modular text), or Quattro Pro (working directly in MathML documents, etc)?
Jon
xeno@wolfenet.com
I think not...(*poof*)
IIRC, he sold a whack of stock and paid off some debts a month before the results of a dissapointing quarter came out. He was being charged with insider trading.
http://dailynews.yaho o.com/h/nm/20000114/tc/tech_corel_3.html
I don't know why this warrants such a high moderation. The questions have been answered all over the media, and Cowpland has given "no comment" whenever anybody asked for more details.
It seems only natural that an exec would be investigated for selling off stock a month before a dissapointing quarter. However I'll be surprised if he's convicted of any wrongdoing... the stocks he sold didn't drop that much, and are now worth triple what he sold them for. A month is a long time in the terms of a quarter.
Regardless, I'm as ignorant as the next guy about the details of the case.
There recently was an "Ask Slashdot" about an open source grammer checker. Do you think that it is feasible that Corel would Opensource Grammatik (at least in part)? What about other small parts of Wordperfect or of your other products?
A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
I asked this question of the KDE team back during their interview and the response was basically that QT applications have some sort of unified printing subsystem and that's what they make use of. Well, that's great if your application is QT based, but most applications for X are not and I can only assume this includes Corel's products.
So basically my question is this. Having ported graphic-intensive applications to Linux, how do you feel the lack of a unified printing subsystem will affect Linux's viability on the desktop level? I know from personal experience that coding print support into a native X windows applications is several orders of magnitude more difficult than printing from a Windows application simply because the MFC architecture provides a nicely coupled printing subsystem built around the same architecture as the display subsystem. Do you know of a move or an architecture under X that more closely ressembles this approach and if so, how do you feel it compares? If not, how are desktop grade applications going to compete on the Linux platform when they have such a large problem to overcome individually?
And I guess on a related note, how do Corel products address this problem? I remember Wordperfect 7 for Linux included a large number of printer drivers that I assume Corel had written themselves. Do you feel that this is a reasonable approach for all applications to take? If not, what do you propose as a more general solution?
What role do you think pre-existing non-Linux-driven companies, such as Corel and IBM, will play in the Linux community? What do you think large, successful, profitable companies can offer to Linux and the community? How do you think that the influence of these companies will change Linux and the community?
-Joshua
One of the biggest issues most of us in the Gnu/Linux community face when considering Corel Linux is that of figuring out your commitment to Open Source / GPL software. First, there was the flack over your beta not being GPLed in spite of containing GPLed code, and then there was the weird situation with you licensing a product developed by people under 18 only to consumers over 18. Would you care to comment on these issues, and on what you can say to reassure those of us who, frankly, doubt Corel's commitment to the ideological positions we hold dear?
--
Dave Aiello
-- Dave Aiello
Considering the facts that: 1) to date, linux has been most financially profitable with corporations as a server operating system, 2) Corel has been investing a large amount of resources in enhancing linux as a desktop OS, and 3) a large percentage of the targeted community is non-corporate and used to getting office applications (e.g., WordPerfect Personal Edition, Star Office, KOffice, and the Gnome Office Suite) for little or no cost; is there any concern that the WordPerfect Office 2000 suite for linux will be financially unsuccessful due to the fact that personal users of linux, used to getting software for free, will be unable/unwilling to spend hundreds of dollars on an office suite? (that being said, I plan on buying it :D )
"BadTimes will make you fall in love with a penguin" - Laika
There is a general sense that, besides trying to increase shareholder value, Red Hat and VA are giving back to the community by employing GNOME hackers, kernel hackers, etc.
Red Hat and VA benefit from doing this, of course, but only in the sense that it benefits the free software community as a whole.
What sort of things are Corel doing along these lines? Have you hired any free software celebrities and given them the mandate to hack on anything want? What non-Corel development projects are you funding? Besides bigger and better graphical installers, what benefits will the average non-Corel Debian user derive from your involvement?
Unfortunately, the same does not happen with either the Debian Project or the KDE Project, where you took their product, made a better product out of them and released back the finished products. In Free Software jargon, what you made is a fork.
Now, although Corel has released the source code to the enhanced forked products (as you were legally bound to, by the GPL), the enhancements made cannot be easily folded back into the respective projects because these projects have evolved since Corel's fork. So the original projects cannot immediately profit from the work Corel's engineers put on them.
Also, because the Free Software programmers are already commited to the original projects, Corel's forks won't benefit much from the Free Software advantages of constant peer review and bug fixes.
So, my question is: What was the motivation behind the decision not to fully cooperate in a Bazaar way with Debian or KDE projects but enhance them in a Cathedral way? At first I thought the answer was that Corel just didn't understand Open Source projects, but after seeing your comendable cooperation with the Wine Project I am now puzzled. Could it be that you needed a shipping product fast and could not afford to follow their release cycles?
And now that Corel Linux has seen the light of day, does Corel intend to work on folding its enhancements back into the original projects or will you keep on with the forking, thereby forfeiting most benefits from Open Source development model?
I understand that a question similar to this one was asked during your keynote speech at TheBazaar and your answer to it involved equating the number of download attempts of Corel Linux to the success and acceptance of your distribution, to which I am inclined to reply that such a high number of downloads is a good gauge of the amount of curiosity Corel Linux managed to gather or, at most, of the quality of your programmers, but not of the success of Corel in cooperating with the comunity.
At The Bazaar, I asked you if you recommended to your customers that they install Red Hat Linux as their server OS, and you said "Yes." Is this still Corel's stand, or are you moving toward the server market as well? Do you have a formal arrangement with Red Hat to provide a single point of technical support for a Corel-deskstop/Red Hat-server installation? I would think this would be very important to anyone deploying in the large.
How committed is Corel to porting their office package over to Linux? Will we see the same functionality in the Linux versions as in the Windows versions when the ports are completed or will there be functional differences? For that matter, will the applications be able to talk to other X applications using the standard X protocols?
If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
I'm a proud Canadian citizen. Despite the "brain drain," I still feel that Canada produces top-notch hardware and software. However, many of our highly skilled people have taken jobs in the US and abroad because they get paid more. I must say, when offered nearly twice the pay, and with a lower cost of living in some US cities, I'd be tempted myself. My question: How dedicated are you to keeping Corel a Canadian company? Are there any political/business issues you wish to see resolved to help keep Corel a Canadian company?
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
You are, after all in the business of making money, not software. All companies are in the business of making money. Your company's embracement of Linux can therefore only be seen as a means to that end. My question is, what is your long-term strategy towards Linux? And please, don't give me a sond bite I can read off your corporate webpage, thanks.
--
Matt Singerman
Matt Singerman
http://matt.vegan.net/
It would seem that Corel's Linux strategy is to legitimize the platform as an alternative to Windows for the desktops of "ordinary users" (whoever they are), so that you can eventually sell them your big-name applications, like Corel WordPerfect Office and CorelDRAW, on this platform, without competition from Microsoft Office, Visio, etc.
However, we can expect that in the Linux "market," your applications will face a different kind of competition from Free Software. For example, KOffice (which also includes a vector drawing tool) will no doubt be competing with WP Office and CorelDraw; of course the Gimp will be competing with Photopaint.
We have all heard the advantages of the Open Source development models, but from your perspective, what are the particular challenges that Free Software offers you as a vendor of competing commercial, closed-source applications? How do you plan do deal with these challenges? Do you perceive these projects as less of a threat than your traditional competitors (eg. Microsoft), a similar threat, or even an asset?
I wish you the best of luck with all of Corel's endeavours!
But the landscape is still shifting towards that dream of Internet-only applications, and even Microsoft seems to be keen in taking advantage of this new trend.
Does this mean Corel will take another stab at Corel Office for Java? ...and hopefully release a superior product capable of harnessing new technologies such as Java Just-in-time compilers and faster processors, because we all know Java will always be a much better solution than Windows Terminal Server.
Does Corel have an ASP (Application Service Provider) strategy?
And does Corel have plans to enter the Net-Appliance market? (Not with hardware, but with software)
And finally, what would you consider are key points in ensuring Corel Linux wins in the Personal Computer market?
In a midsize financial company where I work, Perl is a fundamental platform and core competence. If you were to give Corel office with Perl, we would stop needing VB expertise that we currently hate/but have to support.
What do you see as a problem in integrating Perl as a base scripting language with Corel Office ?