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.

Comments

Now would be the time for Apple to step in...

[2nd Post!]

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...

Keeping in touch

[MagPulse]

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 Products Rank Among the Best

[FFFish]

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.