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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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 :-)
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
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.
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.
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.
We can't forget about the thousands of Iranians, Indians, Russians, and Chinese who come to Canada all the time. (did I leave out any significant minority there?).
And NO Canadians benefit from the brain drain. Living in Canada is much better than living in the States (based on opinion surveys). Just look at stuff like the UN statistics on the best cities in the world to live (you'll find Vancouver near the top), as well as other surveys and you'll find this is the case.
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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- 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