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Corel Looking To Sell Linux Operations?
PySloth wrote to us with a
link to InformationWeek that speculates about what Corel might be doing differently soon. One of the possibilities is the sale of their Linux operations, which would be odd concerning the .NET portion of their deal with Microsoft.
"Why would we want to beat our heads against the wall trying to get people to switch from Microsoft Word?"
For the good of humanity as a whole I'd say.
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Corel faces still competition on many fronts, office, graphics, and Linux. Back when their deal with Borland fell through I predicted that they'd be looking for more stategic partnerships, particularly in the Linux area. The only notable thing I've ever heard about Corel Linux is the ease of use of its setup program.
If they don't have any Linux operations, then they CAN'T port .NET to Linux.. Right ?
UPS Sucks
"To be successful in the Linux market, you need a wider product offering. There's got to be some kind of acquisition,"
Why is this? The above statement doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Corel is already generating 10% of revenues from Linux, according to the article, so why do they need to change?
This would truly be bad.
I tried Corel Linux 1.0 when it first came out. There were a number of good features, like being able to authenticate (graphically) via a windows NT domain right out of the box.
I think Corel missed their market with their distro though. Linux has simply not broken into the desktop market in mass yet... and that was one of the things that Corel Linux was hoping for. Give it a few years and a Corel Linux-like distribution will probably do very well.
Corel are selling Linux because Linux is not suitable for desktop use. Let me give my experiences - I have been reading all about Linux and how great it is and how bad Windows 9x/NT/2000 is. Well I use both. I use Windows when I want to get things done, regardless of the GPF's Blue Screens, of Illegal Operations I experience. I just use Linux to play and dream of the day when it fully comes of desktop age.
Face it Linux is not ready for prime time. Why, because I can't sit my mother in front of a Linux box and expect for her to learn it and to like it. Truth be known (and you have all experienced the same) I have problems with her sitting in front of Windows, just like I have problems with 80% of the users that I support.
Four main (Bullshit) reasons for using Linux over Windows 9x/NT/2000:
1) Linux is free. Most users of Windows are pirates. A friend or family member has bootlegged a copy for them. Besides most you bought your distributions (That's not free). So Linux being free is not a good reason.
2) You get the source code of the OS. So what, I have never looked at the source. I never plan on looking at the source. So having access to the source is not a good argument.
3) Linux is stable. So is DOS. The Linux GUI is no stable. Software packages crash all the time. Stability is not a good argument either.
4) Linux is customizable. Really?!. Most users, if given the opportunity, other than changing the background would never customize Windows or any OS. It's too much work. That's not a good argument either. It's only a choice.
So why are we people using Linux? Because Linux is Cool; and they are elite and like doing things the hard way - it's like people reading advanced philosophy it will never appeal to most people, and 'desktop philosophy' won't have mass appeal.
I have a problem with the following:
Lack of Productivity Software. (Yes, I like Word and Outlook).
Lack of Fonts.
Lack of. Popular games.
Lack of Drive support.
And no easy way of doing things.
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
I fear that the next move by Corel will be a cancellation of a product line; perhaps WordPerfect (since the deal with Microsoft, that seems logical).
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Corel have proved themselves able to port/develop Linux software. Far easy for someone like Microsoft to buy experience than build it up internally.
-- Hob - Java Spectrum Emulator
I always thought it was a little strange that a graphics company tries to jump into the desktop OS market. It's way outside their core competency and not in line with their other product offerings, just to throw in a few corporate buzwords. Their marketing department certainly dosen't seem up to it. It's nice to see major old school (for the computer industry andyway..) companies supporting Linux, but it realy should be someone with a little OS experiance.
Dirty Pirate Hooker
18.5 million people are using down-revs of their flagship software, including many on DOS versions...and they're going to solve that problem by adding better VB support to the product?
Good grief, man! Has their new head man used the DOS versions of the product versus the latest release? The DOS versions are responsive, elegant, and run on the piddlingest hardware you can keep running.
The Windows and Linux versions are slow, and I haven't found either version particularly stable. The users they're trying to target have the PC equivalent of vi, and a DVD's worth of extra features isn't going to address the reasons these people still use the old versions: compatibility, stability, speed, cost, and familiarity.
it's a sinking ship.. and they are trying to salvage as much as possible.. what better than to grab onto something as big and over-inflated, and full of air like MS! ;>
Victoria Palmer - I brake for unix.boys, Windows just breaks. - http://www.escape.com/~juliet
Hi! This is the Sig, blatantly attached to the end of this comment.
this either talks of lack of foresight or about complete lack of business acumen. Corel did not start its Linux work too lonng back and now they are wanting to sell it off. Why did they start it? the market has not changed so significantly in this time. The percentages for Linux based stuff has increased if at all - and now Corel suddenly sees the "light" and figures its not the end of the tunnel but an approaching train. duh!
Unfortunately, the reality is that the impressive market share numbers are driven by servers, farms and Red Hat partitions that the owner means to get around to using some day. And the folks who are actually using Linux anywhere near full-time on the desktop have been conditioned to believe that paying for software is an unfair imposition on them. Yeah, there's a market for Linux productivity apps but it's nowhere near enough to keep a company like Corel going.
Corel has no vision. It has been in downward spiral ever since it decided it could do more than create a good graphics package. It chose the wrong markets. By the time they picked up Wordperfect, Office had already won the war and they failed to see it. Scrambling, and with nowhere to turn, they decide to adpot Linux and once again battle the giant. Subsequently, they decide to port their deprecated Wordperfect stuff to Linux, but do it with an ugly, ugly hack using Wine. WP over Wine is a pig and buggy, so it's generally seen as inferior to other, *free* office suites for Linux. Now they can't beat the giant *or* please their newly adpoted user-base. Meanwhile, Photoshop surpasses Draw and becomes the defacto standard for Windows graphics editing and creation. Michael is charged with insider trading, and nothing is heard of the charges afterwards, but he does step down. In comes the newbie who decides that maybe Linux isn't the right way to go. ~Maybe we should just give up and jump in bed with Microsoft~, and ~Maybe we should just aquire a company that has a clue about Linux~ Maybe you should give your head a shake. Now the newbie stands in the lookout atop the mast of a 4/5 sunken ship, attempting to sail this ship out of trouble. And still now, he wonders publically how he should approach sailing it. ~Hmm, maybe we should buy someone who knows how to sail~. Maybe you should.
There could be consolidation in the Linux sector. Market down, lots of companies in trouble now. Time for the losers to look for lifelines, and the winners to prey on panic and fear.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Perhaps it just doesn't make money and they feel it's not the direction they want to go and simply sell it off to someone who would care. I was part of a spin off, once. There are good and clear reasons when you are on the inside, some anxiety, but you'd rather be spun than shut down.
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
According to this article on zdnet, Corel corp is "refocusing" not relinquishing their Linux products and plans. In this article Burney is quoted as saying: Corel's Linux team is "segmenting" its product line in a new way so that it will offer tailored file-, Web-, and print-server configurations of its Linux distribution, which is based on Debian Linux
Our principle problem for Linux is that we, the current users, want different things from our OS than the faceless hordes want from theirs. (And, the author puts himself in the 'theirs' category)
Let's look at his points:
So why are we people using Linux? Ah..well, now, that's a different question. Which people? We use Linux because some of us like to know what's going on, we like the ability to customize our systems and we like the flexibility.
The faceless hordes? They want a simple way to check email and use productivity software, fonts, popular games and they want it easy. Think Playstation 2 and Palm Pilot built together.
Would you, one of 'us', like to use this mythological Playstation 2 & Palm Pilot hybrid? I wouldn't.
So, our basic problem is that "Linux for the Desktop" is flawed because it doesn't address what the target audience wants. I'm not saying that we cannot create such a creature, but rather that when such a creature is birthed, it won't be recognizable as Linux.
Corel's problem is that they're developing software for this creature which doesn't exist yet. (And they don't seem intent on birthing it.)
PS: Linux has a lack of drive support? Please.
I'm too lazy to think of yet another example, so here's a part of a post I posted to my own post entitled "What do you guys use Linux for"
2 92.html
http://www.quake3world.com/ubb/Forum15/HTML/000
===============================
Once again, I reckon it depends what line of work your in.
Printing
========
We've got a large epson A2 colour printer at work which can output Poster quality artwork if needs be.
I've tried connecting to this printer using win32 with limited success - it's attached to a Mac. I've tried connecting to it via Linux (admitedly with limited experience) with not much success.
All the software on that Mac is geared toward high-quality print design work - Graphics done in Quark Express or Freehand, drivers explicity written for these kinds of applications.
All the printing companies in the industry of graphic design are on Mac (and some win32 i386) - linux is not something they've considered, let alone heard of.
None of this software is open source at present.
The best OS for the job of high quality print work ? - MacOS !
If all you want is, for example, a print out of a website - heck, Linux can do the job just as well as win32 or MacOS !
Sound
=====
It depends entirely what sort of 'arena' your in when you talk 'sound' - do you just use sound for games or mp3 files, are you an amateur musician or is sound editing and manipulation your job ?
If it's your job, you are more than likely going to be using MacOS or Win32.
If you just want to listen to MP3 files or play games, Linux is fine !
Linux, imho, is more geared toward networking and programming
That said, a default install of some of the latest Linux distros kick the win32 default installs butt in terms of options and power.
==========================
Nuff said matey - get your facts right first or keep your cakehole closed.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Its purely under the clout of Microsoft that Corel would be making their future decisions. It makes sense to M$ to discourage all further development on Linux other than the porting to .Net framework, because they dont need one more Linux flavor to compete with, they need an ally on the Linux side which would help them better integrate to their .Net framework. Another interesting thought would be that Corel maynot stop releasing any more versions for Linux, but they would do so by working with MS, and I presume Corel would be the first vendor who would have the .Net framework integrated with in.
:)
As for WordPerfect, I presume MS would love to tout that as an alternative to StarOffice, and to reduce Sun's impact on the Desktop Productivity Tools market. And once WordPerfect replaces StarOffice on the desktop market, I wouldnt be surprised if Microsoft phase it out gradually or move MS Office to other platforms.
My two cents, might worth two million in a couple of years
Rapid Nirvana
Linux on the desktop is getting dam close. I admit, i'm not a newbie. I use Linux on my servers, with an NT desktop. There is a lot of buggy stuff, including my Red Hat 7.0 install at home (dual-boot win98).
However yesterday i downgraded it to 6.2 + patches and installed:
-> KDE 2
-> Mozilla nightly build + Java + SSL
-> WINE
KDE 2 rocks, and using it is second nature for a windows user. Sound worked without me doing anything, beautiful high-color display, modern web browser. Plus i installed a WINE RPM file (first time using wine), and i got Quicken working, just like that! Plus, i found that KOffice could open and edit my MS Word files, pretty good. Plus using OpenSSH natively, w/ipchains firewall securing my DSL connection, i could pretty much do anything.
Naysayers about Linux on desktop are going to have to shut up soon.
From graphics, to word processing, to Linux... Why buy a product from them, when I know that six months down the road, they'll be onto the next big thing?
Yet another example of the marketing muscle of m$ that is so powerful and innovative that it's damn scary. Forget the fact that it's taken m$ 5 years to release a semi-stable OS out the box (win2k) to replace NT4 - it's the sheer force of the marketing that is so hard to stop - or, to put it another way, the $ in m$ They poke and pry into every single corner and opportunity they can find that may still return it's weight in $ Third world markets - m$ is there. Student courses - m$ is on the ball. Threats - m$ will eat try to make you eat your own shorts Emerging technologies - m$ want's to eat them too. Any sign of marketable weakness in the competition - yummy You've gotta hand it to the m$ marketing team - they're the S in scumbags, but the $ in dollars.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Bibo Ergo Sum.
Yeah, 10% of 36.4 million == 0 dollars.
No, the problem is Corel isn't making money on anything. The fact that they're considering *selling* their linux operations (and not just tossing them) would suggest that there's something to be made from them.
This is not to say that an open source or free software based business is going to make as much as Microsoft, but if they did make 3 million dollars from linux offerings this quarter, then there obviously is a market to be targetted for a company that isn't horribly mismanaged.
First off, Corel hasn't had a real direction in years. They were a specialty software company, then they caught the WordPerfect football after it had been kicked around a dozen times, then they came up with a Linux distro, then there was the NetWinder. I don't see a clear business objective in all this. If they dump the Linux distro, they can at least focus on their core business -- application software.
.NET deal, but Corel doesn't have the resources to do anything with in it Linux, and Microsoft doesn't want that anyway, so they get rid of the Linux distro, and keep the rights to do .NET in Linux. Linux support in their application SW will be left to wither on the vine, and they'll sit on the .NET porting rights.
And now for the conspiracy -- they get money from Microsoft in the form of "nonvoting" shares, but Corel's so strapped for cash that Microsoft gets some serious influence. They do the
Don't laugh -- the same thing happened to the 100 mpg carburetor!!
-dwd-
Which means that they have tons of crap to deal with, like charging the GST (Goods and Services Tax) - paying outrageous amounts of employee taxes, collecting confiscatory amounts of income tax, etc.
Kind of hard to compete internationally when you have a communist dictator for the leader of your country who seems to think any kind of profit you make should be siphoned off to fatten his home district.
A lot of Canadian businesses are going under and/or being sold simply because of the crap economy to the North, and the level of taxation and red tape there is choking the life out of what's left.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
I thought the whole nature of the .net strategy was to provide Windows services on a wide variety of platforms. Kind of like a universal server for data and applications.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
Some of the things I did to the system are not exactly standard, but work for them(tm).
Quick instructions:
Concerning the problems you're addressing:
A couple of advantages my parents have from converting to Linux:
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
It appears as though Corel is selling the Linux arm to a venture group called Linux Global Partners in NY. Looks like a done deal.
corel linux is for sale ...who might buy it ? ..they will be selling the building the facilities ..the employees ...like Red-Hat mandrake ..mmm...and many others ? ..closed source ..cost more to develope then open source ... ...many people work for you for free... red hat can copy from debian or suse ..etc.. ..aight ...i never used linux ...but i plan to ..just for the Xperience :)
will it still be called corel linux ?
why would any one buy this division of corel ?
aint the source code availble for free ?
so does that mean
or what ?
whats excatly for sale here ?
and how much money other companies are making out of linux
please note
in open source
many fabricated distribuitions
anyway
sheep for the sheep human for the human i just wonna keep my soul alive
Your example is merely pointing out the mediocrity of most VB coders. It's trivial to seek a file backwards, but VB coders aren't taught to think, they're taught to code, rather to cut/paste code and change variable names and whitespace to hide their plagiarism.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"The fact that Corel is so badly fucked is due to Linux. It just happens that Corel used to work under realworld principles of making money, whereas the opensource companies have been fortunate enough to have opensource rules, where you'll make money for services about 10 years in the future, and now that it is losing money, it is judged by those principles; Corel should get out now before it gets screwed any more."
Corel was getting pretty badly bloodied by Microsoft (and others, e.g. Adobe) long before it ever got involved with Linux. As I recall, back about 1997 or so, capturing the Linux market was supposed to halt the decline of Corel, after Word Perfect Office pretty much lost out to MS Office. It's too bad too. Word Perfect was originally the best word processing app on the planet, but Microsoft pretty much stole its basic UI and prceeded to crush any company that owned Word Perfect (Word Perfect, Novell, Corel) by undercutting its prices and bundling Office with Windows for free. I hope that Corel or someone else continues to Support Word Perfect 8 for Linux, at least, since it's one of the better word processing apps for Linux. (Yeah, EMACS might be more powerful as an editor, but always formatting in TeX sucks!)
To email me,subtract my nick from my email address, starting with the second character. (hint: adto.uiuc.edu is wrong)
This is the same people backing HelixCode, CodeWeavers, MetroLink, others.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
--
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Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway.
My guess is that Corel will still support and develop Linux applications since it's mostly Windows code running under Wine anyway, so it doesn't require a lot of resources. However, if they give up the distro (which isn't having the impact they wanted) they will have more room to form strategic alliances (bundling deals) with other vendors.
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
If you actually read their stuff, the only "multi-platform" support .NET has or is ever likely to is Win NT/98/CE.
Win-something the only platforms MS ever wants to encourage anyoen to use.
No, there is money to be made there, just not
'the sky is pissing money' money (and companies who model their business plan around the possibility of the sky pissing money end up on fuckedcompany.com soon enough).
I think that the Windows vs Linux argument is just like the old argument they had back in the 50's, about cards with punched with square holes v's cards punched with circles.
I think the worst thing that happenned for them last year was that Sun open sourced Star Office. I know Corel makes a ton of other programs besides Word Perfect but that's the one that I hear about the most.
I can definately see Star Office being a major force in three or four years...
People said that this would hurt MicroSoft and it will a bit. But mostly it will hurt Corel right now.
Erm, the day some moron switches to freebsd just because some distro is easy to use for every tom, dick, and harry is the day I disavow any knowledge of BSD.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
OK ls *.ttf | wc -l is, essentially an example of being experienced with the interface.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Linux has so many problems on the desktop it isn't even funny. Sure the basics are there, but it is all so poorly put together that it is quite obvious to anyone why Linux on the mass-market desktop isn't taking off. I think the best thing to do would be to work to polish Linux up. Forget about putting more nifty features in the DEs, creating four different filesystems, a browser that rivels Emacs in overkill factor and get the basics done. For example: 1) Polish up X. 4.0 was a huge leap forward for people in terms of usability, but it still needs work. First, get a GUI to configure it. Relying on a text file to configure something like inetd is one thing; it is so complex that a GUI would be very confusing. However, XFree86Config has so little in it, a GUI should be no problem! All it does is specify a list of modules, specify fontpaths, and set some options for input/output devices. It would be a piece of cake to totally wrap all the features of xf86config (XF86Setup still hasn't been updated yet, AIRC) into a nice GUI program. Second, make it as usable as every other GUI interface in existance. Every single GUI I've ever used, (BeOS, all flavors of Windows since 3.0, QNX Photon, OS/2) have let you choose an exact refresh rate. Why the hell can't X do it? (The sad part is that it probably can, but in the last hour that i've been trying, I can find neither the documentation that says so, nor does anything that comes with the X distro tell me how to do so. Maybe I should read the source?) Hell, even accelerated X lets you set the exact refresh rate! Why can't X change the resolution on the fly? You wouldn't believe how useful BeOS's seperate workspace/seperate res setting is. It helps when you're doing graphics work, when you're doing web work, and even when you're gaming. Set one of the 32 workspaces to a certain resoluation and just switch to that and load your 640x480 game. Lastly, speed it up. Again, 4.0 has made huge strides in this area, but it is still not good enough. The sad part is that the X guys are probably the ones who most "get" what is wrong with Linux on the desktop and are working to fix it. 2) Get a standard DE API. Its great that there are all sorts of UIs out there, that's not a problem. What IS a problem is that there are different APIs for them. All software should be coded for one GUI API, and the window manager should interpret that as necessary. It is totally horrible to anyone with any sense of cleanliness to see the mess that is the miasma of libraries that makes up a common Linux system. You've got TclX, KDE, GNOME, OpenStep, straight-X, Motif, FLTK, etc. That is ugly, ass-ugly. It also makes Linux take up as much RAM as Win2K. That is simply wrong. Not only that, it is confusing. Mandrake installs dozens of different apps that do the same thing, but use different UIs. For example, you can get XCDRoast (ugly UI), gnometoaster (I don't use GNOME) or cdrecord (CLI, hah!) In an ideal world, there would be one GUI API and no matter what desktop you used, it would work. I liked the way it was in the pre enlightenment era when apps weren't tied to DEs. All apps worked on WindowMaker, FVWM, MWM, etc without extra libraries, and with the same (butt-ugly) straight-X interface. Sure you can run a GNOME app in KDE, but it still quacks like a GNOME app, waddles like a GNOME app, and tastes like a GNOME app. (I dislike duck, chicken is best.) 3) Make the advanced features of Linux more accessible. All the cool features that make Linux worthwhile to switch too are often hidden to the average user. If you run KDE, the only thing you gain over running Windows is more stability. All the stuff that makes Linux cool is hidden to you unless you A) Learn the CLI, AND B) Give up the consistant interface of KDE. Yea, it takes work. Yea, it takes thinking. It means that instead of sitting down and just coding, the KDE and GNOME guys actually have to use their brains and decide how everything fits together. A user environment is a home for the user. People don't like poorly architecture/organized homes (no matter how solidly built) and people don't like poorly architectured DEs (most anyway.) Creating a user environment is like writing a sonnet or a novel. Everything has to have a purpose, parts shouldn't be redundant, everything has to harmonize together. That's the only good way to do it. With al the effor being expended putting useless features into GNOME and KDE, the Linux crowd could have taken AfterStep or WindowMaker long ago and have shaped Linux into a desktop-worthy OS today. Its a shame that people are working so hard to fix something that isn't the problem.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
In my experience...WordPerfect is faster than StarOffice, and more stable. I used StarOffice for about two weeks, after hearing how good it was. That was a joke. It crashed more times than not. It was also incredibly slow. (I have an AMD-K62/233 w/64 meg RAM. not blazing fast, but not snail-paced, either). So I broke down and downloaded WordPerfect 8. Installed it. It hasn't crashed at all on me, as far as I can remember. It's a little slow, but still much faster than StarOffice.
;)
Also, in my experience, WP8 is better than StarOffice when it comes to converting between different file formats. (Something I find essential right now.)
WP8 for Linux also seems to be faster than the Windows version of the same product. Go Linux.
You'll notice I SPECIFICALLY said "(presentation, not idea)". I had no problem with your proposing windows 2000 is at least as stable and more user friendly than linux.
You'll also notice that your comment "People who are smart enough to realize and honest enough to admit that W2K is at least as stable as Linux and far more user friendly? " was original comment was negatively geared, it put linux users down, and of COURSE you will get moderated down for a comment like that, it is, after all, flame bait. Not because Windows2000 is at least as stable as Linux, but because the WAY you put it puts you as flaming. If you dont want to get moderated down as flamebait, then dont call people stupid liars! (smart enough, honest enough)
Take some time to learn some netiquette, manners, and whatever else it is you are lacking, take the time to read other peoples posts, and MAYBE you wont get moderated down for posting pro microsoft posts!!! If you reply, dont reply anonymously. Nobody is looking through this forum any more, nobody is about to moderate you down.
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Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius