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Corel Cuts 220 Jobs to Save $12M
Cecil writes "Just saw this story on the City of Ottawa's website:
'The Software maker Corel Corp. is cutting 220 jobs - more than a fifth of its workforce - in a bid to reduce costs and return to profitability amid weak technology spending.'" Of course, this stinks for those who are laid off, but hopefully Corel can turn things around.
It was a nice company, well, it tried to be, and now it's going down the drain..
"If anyone needs me, I'm in the angry dome."
They can try to compete against Microsoft, which is pretty much a loosing battle given the commercial monopoly Microsoft has on the Office application suite, or they can compete against the OSS office application suites, in which case its pretty tough to compete against no-cost development. I predict they hang around a bit longer, but only selling to those buying PCs bundled with Windows and Corel where the buyers don't know much about Office software and want to squeeze an extra couple of pennys off the price of their machine.
That isn't the city of Ottawa web site, thats a local news web site. If you want the City Of Ottawa's web site, check out http://www.city.ottawa.on.ca/
If you think you were surprised to find out Corel was laying off 220 people. Then imagine my surprise to find that they are still in business.
Who buys this stuff?
Corel used to hold a huge share of the market with products like Corel Draw. Now, Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand fill that niche. Corel is dying. I think Corel Linux was their swan song, now it's just a wait until they finally go under.
Cash strapped and confused as Corel may seem, this move would appear to me to be a consolidation and focusing of Corel's main products (those being WordPerfect Office Suite et al.)
In fact, having a former life in the photographic industry, I could never figure out what Corel was doing in the stock photographic / images business anyhow. The quality of their libraries were fairly well below the industry normals in addition to some fairly draconian and muddled contract agreements.
In particular, there was an instance where a former employer of mine used some Corel stock images for their catalog. The photographer who actually took the shots summarily attempted to sue my former employer. When Corel was contacted, we learned that certain images in the library were still property of the original artist.
This caused us some deal of confusion since this is not the not the norm for stock photographic images.
This is a prime example of a company getting into a business they really didn't understand (Corel), its about time they started dumping their ancillary business and focusing on software development, rather than services like stock imagery.
At every job in America today, fewer workers are being used to work more hours -- often in states with no overtime laws, and/or under salaried pay -- simply for the sake of CEO's profits and short-term stock gains.
Where does management think that, by understaffing every company, outsourcing every IT job to India, exporting entire factories to neo-colonial slave labor camps in China and Mexico, understaffing the jobs that actually remain, and so forth will save their company?
They're killing the geese that lay their golden eggs by seeing wages as unnecessary expenses and firing every American worker in sight.
The MBAs of Wharton and Harvard who run the country are going to have a lot of explaining to do once the economy truly crashes and burns, as they have gutted the entire American industrial base with their selfish management.
I haven't heard of any Corel developments for a looonng time, it was inevitable that the company would start to go under, what with better, and often free, or even open source programs.
Not that they aren't the same ones made by a good many other companies in times of losses. Borrowing from the future will come back to burn them badly, I just hope they don't try to squeeze too much more out of the people who are left. I've heard some horror stories from Ottawa friends about working for them.
IMO, if somebody were to come in with a good amount of cash and try to take them private, they might be able to leverage it into a powerful software maker again, without having to worry about quarterly finances quite so much.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
average out to be 54k / person.
which means that if we bell curve it, there are some highly paid individuals being cut. probabbly software engineers, maybe some management.
I have heard somewhere that when a company start cutting engineers, then the company REALLY is not doing so well. I wish them luck regardless, though. They make some nice software.
but then the 12M may not be all from job cuts, though - so I am just blabbing, actually.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
It's seems like a loose-loose situation to me.
They could've cut 12 executives and saved $24M.
I have to say that as an ex Corel Linux employee who saw what happened inside the organization that it is grossly inaccurate to say they dropped it on the marketplace and expected it to sell itself. They did run paper advertisments and were dedicating half or more of stand space to Linux and it's (wine'd) Office suite (Draw et al having the other half).
I think the reason they didn't get very far is:
What could they do in the face of this? Could they re-write all the incompatible sections to placate us....NO they couldn't afford to. Could they change from wine for Linux apps... NO they couldn't afford to, they weren't getting money from Linux so in the face of the cost cutting required it was hard to justify expenese on Linux that might actually produce money from Draw/WP 10.
Where next......well after their minor success with their unix WP7/8 and an old draw I think they will be back to the Linux marketplace with a native app, the only questions are how long must we wait, will it be worth it or have MS killed it?
Ultimately I cannot see many/any traditional shrink-wrap software companies converting well into Linux land, they can't comprehend the underlying concept of using the GPL (not just LGPL) stuff out there and releasing products based on support et al rather than licensing revenue. Why didn't Corel just port their whole App suite to Gnome/KDE2 on all platforms rather than work on KDE and wine?
All of their problems probably would have been solved had it not been for the change in relative stock prices of Corel and Borland between the initial merger announcement and the critical dates. What was an attractive deal for both sides become a wholly unappealing deal for Borland shareholders and Corel lost a stay of execution AND the combined "powerhouse" that should have arrived on the Linux platform.
Disclaimer. The above are the conclusions I have drawn from my observations.....not the facts cause I don't know them....as if you all couldn't tell :-)
That appointment was made permanent after he orchestrated a $135-million US investment by arch rival Microsoft Corp., which provided Corel with enough cash to ride out a period of declining revenues while it worked to develop a new business strategy and products.
Maybe we should just make Microsoft Corp. give (not invest) $135-million US to all the major companies (an Open Source projects) in trouble due to the economy...they can afford it...and it certainly would be good PR!
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
I think that Corel's failure was the fact that people pirate MS Office, and don't care to try out less expensive office suites.
In my opinion Corel Office was much more intuitive, yet, in my school, there is not one person excluding myself who doesn't pirate software. In fact teachers indirectly encourage students to get MS Office off Kazaa or "to borrow it from a friend"
It is really really sick.
We must stop piracy in the education system, it'll save good companies like Corel.
Infuse, say, $20M into the company with a promise for Corel WordPerfect for OS X, and maybe stronger ties between Corel's graphic products and OS X...
GPL Deconstructed
Since I live in Ottawa, I can correct two errors in the story:
1. ottawa.com does not belong to City of Ottawa. It belongs to GlobalWest Communications Corp., as well as canada.com and many other similar domain names.
2. Slashdot crew, update the Corel logo!
Er, uh, Corel is a Canadian company, why the rant about American jobs?
I don't think the sweat shops in India are producing too much software code, but that could explain things about Windows, if they are outsourcing to sweatshops.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Considering that that happens only once every few months while thousands of buisneses adopt Windows for the same purpose in the same time period, you're not going to get much.
Is this not the point of open source!
I have to imagine the WP folks were among those hardest hit. It's a shame, but I can honestly say that I've had more issues with WordPerfect 10 than I've had with any version of WordPerect since 6.0 for Windows (and I've used them all except 7.0). Not sure if sp3 (for WPO2002) is helping yet or not. However, if Corel can't release solid code in a version 10 product I'd question if it makes sense to continue with the product.
Well, there's CorelDRAW.... And that's about it. All of their other flagship products like WordPerfect, Quattro, Bryce, and so on were aquired from other companies and Corel has never really done much to improve upon what they purchased in any significant way.
I know I won't be shedding a tear for Corel if/when they go out of business. Just because they competed directly against Microsoft doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of their software offerings are blown away by competing products.
As I hear about these continual massive layoffs, I wonder if the ex-employees are keeping in touch. Most of them probably haven't looked for a job lately, so it will take them a little time to get back in to it. Also it's important for them not to feel bad about it. They will go through a life-changing event, and there will be hundreds or thousands of people going through the same thing in a conveniently small geographical area, so it would be great for them to help each other and at least use each other for networking.
I guess I'm just proposing something like www.exemployees-forum.com.
Corel used to be a major player, which is more than I can say for most .coms. Plus, Corel has been in the news lately, so there is a certain precident for Corel news. Hell, Slashdot even has a logo just for them.
That's impossible. The American-hating Slashbots keep telling me how bad the US is and how much it sucks to live here. Clearly there is NOBODY in the world who would actually leave their socialist paradises to come to the US.
Clearly the parent post is under some drug-induced delusion.
> outsourcing every IT job to India, exporting entire factories to neo-colonial slave labor camps in China and Mexico, understaffing the jobs that actually remain, and so forth will save their company?
It worked for Nike!
Why do you care? Seriously.
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PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
and here are just a few reasons why: gateway, dell, hp and sony. all announced in the last year that they are beginning to bundle various forms of corel office with new computers. a wonderful way in itself to renew the user base; hook em while they're young! for a first time pc buyer (read: gateway) get the software in their hands even if you have to lose money. as opposed to say MS[sometimes]Works im sure that liscensing costs are less for the pc distributors which will definately give corel some legs (oh yeah and that article thing we are supposed to be talking about, i think it said they found a way to save a few dollars somewhere....). plus it seems they have a niche in a niche market (osx) that will still pay some of the bills. they did a very wise thing by being one of the first developers if not the first into every product market they have on macOSX when the big boys (read: adobe) were taking a wait and see approach. as much as i personally use their software (none) im not sure why i always keep up with their camp but i think all you naysayers will have a long time to write the obituary yet.
this is really going to start putting Ottawa in the shit.
First off, houses in places like Beacon Hill, even, are going for at least a quarter mil, thanks to a massive influx of greed and dot com wannabes.
Now, Nortel is tanking, Entrust doesn't seem to be doing so well, and Corel? Well, apart from giving Ottawans yet another interestingly white trash tacky overpriced outfit to look at at every new gallery opening or whatever, it isn't doing much apart from being a big copper eyesore next to the Queensway.
Man, I feel for those employees - but it looks like Ottawa's basket is rapidly emptying of eggs.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Lets see. Factor in the exchange rate, and you're down to $35,000US a year. Then when you remember that the annual cost of an employee is alot more than their base salary alone. Typically youy can assume that an employee costs about twice his salary, with taxes, overhead, benefits, etc. Now we're down to 17,500 roughly. That's $8.75/hr.
The Starbucks the next block over, is hiring Barista's for $9.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Of course, this stinks for those who are laid off, but hopefully Corel can turn things around.
/. editors is astouding sometimes.
Doesn't this stink for more than just the people who got laid off? Does the idea that a corporation can layoff dedicated workers not meet with challenge these days? The anti-union attitudes of
What ever happened to the idea that if you dedicate a major portion of your life to a company, you deserve something a little more than just money for 40 hrs/week--like job stability for example.
The US has gone from a "right to work" country to a "right to get fired" country, almost within a few years. The focus on "keeping corporations profitable EVERY SINGLE YEAR" is absurd.
They started getting pay checks. Have you seen the pics of Chris DiBona's house on his website? Not too shabby for posting some polls every now and again.
Draw, Wordperfect, Office, etc etc. All the while they're creating ports of .Net to FreeBSD (that won't generate any revenue) and other various frivolous projects. This is a little bit like the plight of Sonic Foundry; getting into video and creating five different audio suites really dilutes the manpower to create great applications.
What Corel needs to do is concentrate on one product and make sure it's the best in the business. Go after Photoshop. Go after Office (well, on second thought, don't). But don't go after both at the same time.
The fact that the Canadian dollar is completely and utterly in the toilet SHOULD be helping them out. Apparently it's not. Things really must be bad...
I live in an upper-middle class right-wing Canadian Neighborhood. Kids have access to High speed, and many of the teachers do to.
My neighborhood was the first to figure out Kazaa and other such things.
Thus, teachers hear students asking if they can do their art/movie/fancy multimedia projects on computer. OF course, teachers can't refuse. Many will ask that student the name of the software and pirate it at home to try it out.
I have one teacher who tells all his students to use photoshop for their multimedia assignments.
The teachers use MSOffice even though they have access to Corel for a low price from the board!
Meanwhile students will pirate anything they can get their hands on, even though they smell of money in school.
Of course, this stinks for those who are laid off, but hopefully Corel can turn things around
A hint of corporate sympathy, on
Yeah, but not all of us are personally related to the prime minister and/or working for Bombardier, asshole.
[sarcasm]I'm confused. How can troll be sexy?[/sarcasm]
I just walk past it on the way to the office every day.
Hell, I don't even drink the free coffee here. I'm relatively caffiene free, and damn glad.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
The other reason i hate Corel is they buy really good products and ruin them. A good example is Fractal Painter, which is a really cool product, tons of features. The best part was the integration with tablets. Corel bought painter and it has fallen in to obscurity.
News forum Slashdot.org, this evening, in a reader-submitted story, revealed shocking allegations and supporting evidence substantiating the claim that someone actually reads the city of ottawa's website.
Michael Cowpland took the right direction at the wrong time when he rode on the Linux revolution.
I believe Linux is the way, but he put too much of the business on doing stuff for a market that wasn't
ready for it. Even though Michael is not a part of Corel anymore, the damage from this decision still
affects Corel to this day. I hope they'll return to profit one day.
The 220 who got pinkslips can look forward to a long period of unemployment since there are about
30-35,000 unemployed techies in Ottawa. Home Depot recently announced that they wanted to hire
80 people for a new outlet, and got nearly 30,000 people applying. (techies and non-techies) The only
way out of this unemployment trap is either to move or to start up your own company.
Why isn't Corel releasing the source for their whole office suite, then selling plugins, service, and other add-ons for the base product? Selling their base product isn't working, right? This isn't a rhetorical question. I really want to know if there is a real problem with them going with a different model a la Netscape.
Siemens in Germany is laying off ten thousands of workers; the whole telecommunication biz in Germany is on the ground. So why are a couple of hundred workers at Corel are worth a headline at /.?
Nobody is talking about the thousands at Marconi, Alcatel, AT&T, Siemens, name a company.
Sorry, i might be a bit pissed of, but sometimes i don't get the point about selective recognition.
Alex.
You look like a million dollars. All green and wrinkled.
Wow, not bad, for the day.
(Quote data provided by Reuters. Quotes are delayed 20 minutes.)
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
It's a shame to see yet another company brought down by the commercial failure of linux. So many good people out of jobs. Linux is the worst thing to happen to the computer industry in 10 years. Instead of innovating on the solid free BSD source base, we've wasted countless programming lives rewriting nothing new. No wonder linux and all those who hitch their wagons to it are failing or have already failed.
1. Should clones have rights too?
2. Couldn't they see that one Steve Jobs was enough for any company?
Troll? More like spot on.
or the execs could just take a pay cut.
riiiggghhhttt...
No one should be allowed to earn a living from programming, it must all be for free? A person should only be allow to profit from selling manuals or technical support?
Yes and wasn;t the latest Linux Hippie chant about some skateboard rental shop using it?
(though there's plenty there to work with), but I just hope that if worse comes to worst, they find Painter a good home. I'd sure hate to see that proggie's untimely demise.
Guy I know got let go today. He said the actual count was 270. Sounds like they may be playing with the numbers to make it sound less traumatic.
Course this is secondhand knowledge that is not substantiated
Let's take an overview of what Corel sells:
- WordPerfect. Matches every feature of Word, and throws in a few more: Reveal Codes, and a SGML mode, plus frame placement that actually works.
- Paradox. An awesome database engine. Far better than Access, last I read from the pointy-heads that know this sort of thing.
- Quattro. At least up to Office 97, it matched Excel for features. I haven't the foggiest what either company has added (or even could add!) to the spreadsheets, so I don't know how they compare now.
- Ventura Publisher. Its only competition is FrameMaker. It has far better typographic controls and UI, plus it comes with a database publisher that simply rocks, and XML import that appears to be more powerful than FrameMaker's.
- Corel Draw. It is awesome. I think it can be argued that it's the best general-purpose vector illustration program out there.
- PhotoPaint. It's easily as good as Photoshop. It does have a rather different UI, but the power is there.
- XMetaL. From the recent SoftQuad purchase, it is one of the best XML creation/maintenance engines out there. Coupled with Ventura for publishing to print, and it's beyond compare.
- iGrafx. From another recent purchase, these are a set of Process/Workflow tools that are incredible.
- Painter. From its Metacreations purchase, Painter is an incredible "natural media" simulation. It's a world apart from Draw and Paint, and a helluva lot of fun.
I think that pretty much covers their major product list.
Each and every one of those products ranks in the top three for its category in terms of functionality.
Unfortunately, Corel has several things going against it:
- Major (and foolish) Mac bias in the graphics/publishing market.
- An incompetant marketing department.
- A history of buggy product releases (though the inevitable service packs always help a lot).
And, of course, there's always the harsh reality that the best products don't always come out on top... and we're all familiar with some really crappy products that are dominating the market.
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
If cutting 220 jobs will save you $12 million, why not cut 440, as it'll save you $24 million? Why not cut 22,000, as that'll save you $1.2 billion? Hell, why not fire everyone...surely, that'll save you several TRILLION!!
Why not cut jobs by 120%? You can cut the additional 20% by firing out-contractors. Hell, if you cut jobs by 1000%, surely, you'll save ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD!! Wow!
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Guy I know, knows someone in his class who's on a workterm at Corel...
:)
Turns out that as of noon today he was the only one left on his *floor* that still had a job.
*Everyone* he knew at Corel was laid off today.
He's not quite sure what he's going to do tomorrow.
Wiwi
"I trust in my abilities,
but I want more then they offer"
I'm not advocating the death of Office, but you're saying that increased competition in the Office Suite arena in Macland is a bad thing?
I imagine having two competent office suites would drive down costs for the consumer, increase features and support for the consumer, and in general increase the capability of OS X fitting into a business environment with the added application support.
You're saying it's better for Apple to bend over for Microsoft than to invite Corel to play in the sandbox?
GPL Deconstructed
And it's not going to stop unless the exchange rates start to change -- why work for 50000 CDN for example if someone in the US is paying 65000 USD? *shrugs* That's mostly, if not all of the problem. It's very very common in the medical field and certainly isn't suprising that CS and IT are getting hit badly as well.
Karma whorin' since 1999
They get beaten around like the proverbial red-headed step child that they are. Even that C looks like the affro of an ugly red-head.
AMD is also planing lay offs. They have to cut US$ 350 million in costs, and some of these will come from lost jobs.
Well, she's got to pay off that loan on her tits somehow.
Not to sound trollish on Corel, but...
Personal experience with WP 2002 is that it runs sluggishly and I can expect it to crash every time I run it. Furthermore, the VBA module to automate WP is poorly documented at best.
We were trying to merge documents of different sizes and orientations into a single file per a client request... something MS Word is horrible with due to the alternating headers. Acrobat was not an option because they did not a document they couldn't alter/cut/paste and all that jazz.
After an entire week of development, we found that if you used late binding on some of the objects to activate a hidden parameter, you would get the desired effect of pasting a bunch of documents together. If you used early binding, the program would crash horrifically. The app is full of stuff like that.
Further parsing and automation via WP has been a nightmare. I honestly don't know why the law profession is still using it, other than the fact that the legal profession seems to stay behind the curve with technology anyways. It seems legal partners are not eager to blow money on IT. If someone could explain it to me, I'd appreciate it.
I'm surprised Corel is still around. They might not be around in another couple years if they don't fix their WP app quickly. OpenOffice is more stable and you can't beat the price. How can you compete with free or with Microsoft?
I don't think its possible.
This space for rent.
My friend hated OpenOffice since he had used MSOffice all his life (pirated of course)
why you forsaken customers, at the expense of share holders. I don't quite understand what has happened to them. They rode Linux like it was the winner at the kentukey derby. They they put it out to pasture (for them) as a platform because it didn't bring direct revenue. They seem like a fish out of the frying pan (that was the tech bust), it flops around a few times before it lays dead. I truly hoped it would make something of itself and wordperfect, what it would take the shap as, I don't know know. As this has faded into the imagination of Michael Cowpland, I fear this once rich and power *Canadian* company will fall into bankruptcy, or get bought by another company (MS anyone), and be a blip on the MS Radar. There could be hope if it abandons all prospects of Microsoft Office compatibility and foucses soley on Publishing. Otherwise it will face t the same fate Netscape did. If yout competition is MS, then you've already lost. If you created a product similiar in function, but not in competition with MS, then you have a chance.
Bah, nevermind all this, I'm way, way to drunk to put together a real thought.
Corel bought out Micrografx about a year ago, it seems primarily to extinguish them.
Not at all. Corel has no intention of "extinguishing" Micrografx Designer; rather, its high-end technical drawing niche is an integral part of Corel's play for enterprise-level process-management vertical markets. Note the high profile of designer on this automotive and aerospace enterprise solutions profile.
It's obviously uncertain whether they can do it, but Corel is making a pretty convincing attempt to become a credible source of some really fancy XML-driven combinations of graphics and data. Technical or creative illustrations with built-in live ties to a database, that sort of thing. It's both in cooperation and competition with .NET.
We can reduce ideas to bits and people to genes, but "can" does not imply "should".
That's why Wordperfect has persisted for so long.
Legal documents are primarily "Text Only", as they should be.
And always will be!
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Compared to places like malaysia or india the american worker might be expensice, but in general we are the cheapest in the first world. Why do you think Mercedes et all open manufacturing in TN and such. As for IT workers, we're expensive because we earned our keep by making businesses more efficient.
IF the workers would of preferd
to all take a 25% pay cut?
Do these companys ever ask around
before slashing there wrokforce??
say maybe 10-20 ppl may just want
to leave of there own ocorde...
Id love to see the day when big bussines
consultes with its own workforce...
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
- Corel Draw. It is awesome. I think it can be argued that it's the best general-purpose vector illustration program out there.
Yep, it could be argued. Of course, the person arguing this position would be wrong, but I guess that's beside the point...
I used to do a lot of portfolio evaluation at the ad agency I work at. People would get pissed when I made a comment like "hmmmm, you must really like Corel, eh?" It's one of those graphics programs which taints every project it touches with its own "feel." Too many gradients, too many too-bright colors. Tacky.
It's only "awesome" if you don't know any better. Which, apparently, you don't.
For professional vector illustration, Adobe Illustrator (like Photoshop) is the standard. If you can't use it, well, we won't hire you. Flaws it certainly has, but each revision is better (with the possible exception of 9, which I more or less skipped).
- Major (and foolish) Mac bias in the graphics/publishing market.
Okaaaaaaay. You don't like Macs. Congratulations, you're part of the moral majority. Bully for you.
However, there's a very simple reason that Macs rule in design and publishing: Adobe software runs better on the Mac that it does on Windows, and Adobe software is the engine that drives this industry. You can deny it, and you may dislike it, but it's an established fact.
Painter? A toy. Always has been. Like you said, "helluva lot of fun." I'm not in this for fun. I'm doing this stuff to please my clients, beat deadlines, and sell product. Having fun is great, but it's more important to get the job done, and get it done right. I'd rather finish my projects early, get off work early and ride a bike or something.
Corel is failing because too many of its apps are mediocre. It's the Plymouth of the software industry. The only people who buy this stuff are shopping at Office Depot at the time, and pick it because of the pretty box.
- PhotoPaint. It's easily as good as Photoshop. It does have a rather different UI, but the power is there.
It's an interesting little world you live in, isn't it? I think maybe next time you should wait until the pails on the lunchbox tree are ripe before you tuck in...
m-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
Since corel is a small company they don't get enough retail exposure. So they should start offering low end versions and high end version directly for sale from the company website.
Maybe sell ulta cheap stripped down versions of WP that expire in a year or two.
More aggressive marketing in any case. Corel gives consumers little incentives to go out there any try or buy their programs.
Maybe they could save a few bucks by not paying to have the Ottawa Senators stadium named after them.
The Corel Center naming rights must cost a few bucks.
http://www.corelcentre.com/index2.aro
February 27, 1996 The Palladium is renamed the "Corel Centre" in a 20 year, multi-million dollar agreement with the internationally-known, Ottawa-based software company. The new identity positions the Corel Centre as the highest-technology sports and entertainment facility in the world.
My condolances to those that lost their jobs.
Wax on, wax off baby!
- PhotoPaint. It's easily as good as Photoshop. It does have a rather different UI, but the power is there.
Well, not quite actually. PS rulez through filters. That's why PS is the industry standard. For good reasons too. CPPs filters just plain suck.
But I do agree that workspace management and the tools are on par with PS and Corel Script kicks the crap outta PS-automation.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I read this and thought: Great way to increase profitability: sack loads of people. Get the rest of the people to just work more - I'm sure the rest of the people at corel are delighted... Sometimes yes, there isn't really anything else you can do, and maybe it's even part of a downsizing plan so that the others don't really do more, and you're just cutting out middlemen.
A cool solution when the problem is just that the company will go bust if you don't close a section or start to decimate the employees is one I read a while back about how a recession was managed in the 80s in denmark I think: they just cut jobs in half and made it easier to work part time.
This was done at a government level though: it meant people could have 2 part time jobs and make the same or a little less than they used to, and also couples or families could both work part-time and get the same salary as if only one was working full. And it meant people could have one big cash job that might be boring, and another low cash job that was what they actually wanted to do. It apparently worked really well, and now they are an example of how you can save money and help people at the same time. Just vague memory of this though so I hope someone else can be more precise!
Ale
"I'd hate to see her up close. "
yeah, you might piss your pants getting that close to a woman...freakn geeks...go watch star trek, loser...
Here in Oz an employer has to give a months wages for every year worked when a worker's made redundent.
Plus 2 or 3 months paid long service leave that accumelates every 5 years
& any of the 4 or 5 weeks annual paid leave that doesn't get used accumalates every year too (5 weeks for shift workers).
Ontop of which some awards permit the acumelation of unused sickies, which at 15 sickies a year means if one worked somewhere for 10 years, taking just 5 sickies a year, that's 100 days of sickies left. This means that 3 months before redundency they just have to get a doctors certificate for depression or a bad back (no big deal) & 100 days worth of sickie pay gets added to the redundency pay.
So if Corel was in Oz & one had worked there for 10 years & only used 5 sickies a year, one would leave with redundency payout of 10 months pay + accured unused paid sickleave of 100 days (pending sickness certificate - has anyone met a doctor who's refused to write one?) + 2 or 3 months paid long service leave (it depends on the award, plus the 1st 5 years arn't counted) + accured unused annual leave.
Mind you some awards have a 'use it or lose it' setup for sickies & annual leave. But with such jobs employers have to schedule the full 4 or 5 weeks annual leave to you every year. With other awards where you can accumalate what you don't use, you still have to use at least a week of it every year.
The biggest problem I see with the major software companies is that the majority of the high paid MBA types in those organizations don't have any working knowledge of the products they make. I deal with these companies day in and day out and have for more years than I care to divulge. Corel has some good product but if the executives don't have a solid grasp on how to use the software, professionally, how can they have any vision to foster the direction of the software into professional environments? What follows from the executive level is a trickle effect and it typically boils down to the person(s) who has the greatest working knowledge of any given application, or suite of applications, the person(s) who have the greatest potential for vision in the developemnt of those applications, they have the least amount of say in the matter. Adobe is the same as well as those other guys.
PegQuin--I've got a sneakin' suspicion
Factor in the exchange rate
No, you don't factor in the exchange rate when it's a home-currency transaction! $50K is $50K is $50K, as long as that $50K is staying on the same side of the border where it started.
I guarantee that a $50K/a job buys you every bit as much whatever as you could want in Canada as it does in the US (some goods and services are more expensive, but I don't pay half my salary to Kaiser Permanente every month like a friend of mine in Baltimore does). When it comes to cost-of-living, in general, prices in Ontario are comparable to or cheaper than most places in the US.
But the key point is, again, you don't use the exchange rate when the money is staying on the same side of the border where it started. The ONLY time (and I repeat) ONLY time the exchange rate applies is when the transaction is cross-border. Since Corel is a Canadian company spending Canadian dollars in Canada, the equivalence should be understood as roughly 1:1 (based on cost of living and other indices) and not 2:1.
Sighh...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
Yes, thank you :) Either you don't factor the exchange rate in, or you have to run it both ways. Thos Barista's at Starbucks would have to be making $15 an hour here to compare with a $9 an hour job in Canada.
A long long time ago, it was standard thinking that a healthy economy meant workers paid enough to afford to buy the products the companies they worked for made. It's still true...
VI:
A hungry dog hunts best.
A hungrier dog hunts even better.
VII:
Decreased business base increases overhead.
So does increased business base.
VIII:
The most unsuccessful four years in the education of a cost-estimator
is fifth grade arithmetic.
IX:
Acronyms and abbreviations should be used to the maximum extent
possible to make trivial ideas profound. Q.E.D.
X:
Bulls do not win bull fights; people do.
People do not win people fights; lawyers do.
-- Norman Augustine
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