Microsoft Writes Off Corel

PizzaFace writes "Microsoft resuscitated Corel two and a half years ago, paying $135 million for a quarter of Corel's equity ownership. Corel talked then about bringing its products to .Net, and even hinted that it might use its Linux expertise to port .Net to Linux. Since then, Corel gave up on the Linux business and isn't talking anymore about .Net, but is instead riding its XML hobbyhorse. So Microsoft is selling its stake in Corel to a VC firm for $13 million, taking a 90% loss on the investment."

Comments

Missing the point

[BWJones]

The whole point of purchasing Corel was not to investigate Linux or any other option. Rather the goal was to kill it. Dead. Thus, eliminating any competition or furthering the prospects of important applications on competing platforms.

Re:Missing the point

[Bonker]

Certainly. I'm certain if someone walked up today and told the Microsoft board of directors that he could 'eliminate' Linux for 1 Billion dollars and could prove it, then they wouldn't blink twice before signing a check.

Well...

[13Echo]

Considering the fact that Microsoft killed Corel (WordPerfect) for the sake of its own products, I don't think that they really care about the loss. They've made more than enough to cover the extra 90%.

Couldn't that be the real reason that they invested in the company? Microsoft always gets its fingers into the competition when they feel that they could be a threat.

Microsoft antitrust case...

[$$$$$exyGal]

And with the antitrust case against Microsoft settled, DeGroot added, "There's less of a need for Microsoft to show interest in keeping independent software vendors going."

That's the heart of the issue, right there. So ironic.

Why corel is dying

[Tuxinatorium]

Corel is dying because their software is inferior. The only reason anybody ever uses it is because it's so dirt cheap. At Newegg, Corel office suite comes free with every purchase over $500. For a while, they were selling it for $10 a pop with free shipping.

Why not...

[nedron]

Now that MSFT has been let off virtually penalty free by the Bush administration, why bother to keep propping up a "competitor". Microsoft was desparate during the trial to insure that none of the competition dropped off the face of the earth, which would have added additional fuel to the penalty phase of the trial.

Now that they don't have to worry about being punished, why continue shoring up companies like Corel? I wouldn't be surprised if they also drop their support of Apple (via Office X) for the same reason. They no longer have to prove that they're "good partners".

Frankly, after the previous round of government litigation in the mid-nineties, the same thing happened. Once they were out from under close scrutiny the loosed the dogs of war.

-David

The history of Corel's Crazes

[Ed Avis]

Remember back when Corel decided Java was the future, and said it would be rewriting its office suite in Java?

Then a few years later it was Linux. Asked by an interviewer whether the Linux thing was just a passing obsession for Corel like Java had been, a spokesman asserted that no, this was different, Corel was really committed to Linux.

Then they got almost-bought by Microsoft, dumped Linux and started going on about .NET, again threatening to port the by now rather cobwebby Corel Office to the new platform.

Now that too has gone and XML is the big thing? Whatever next?

Re:The history of Corel's Crazes

[mcc]

I think the thing to take away here is to remember what happened at the end of each of these crazes.

As far as i can tell, Corel has never once followed through on any of these buzzword projects. They get *something* in the hands of consumers.. they never really *commit*.. they spend lots of money.. then they get bored, wander off, and dump the thing like it never existed sometime well before the point at which the inclusion of the buzzword would begin to make sense.

Like the java thing all those years ago. They got their office suite *working* in java. I tried it. It was buggy and it was slow, but it was beta, and it was *there*. But, from my perspective as a mac user-- well, first off, running it was a bloody mess, you had to bugger about with .jar files. They didn't bother doing the application encapsulization thing on any platform, you had to run it in a browser or appletrunner ultimately if i remember right. But that's just a lack of polish. They had the groundwork. And most of the problems *i* had were that this was in the early days of apple's MRJ runtime and the MRJ was *slow*.

So then what did they do? Well, um, nothing. After awhile they decided it wasn't worth the bother and just stopped updating, maintaining or allowing you to download it. By the time the MRJ reached a decent level of speed, which was still the EARLY days of java, you couldn't get Wordperfect for Java anymore, and if i remember right the older WPJ versions had some big incompaibilities with the later MRJ versions anyway. Had they kept developing it, they probably would have been able to come up with a reason why Wordperfect for Java is a good idea, and it would have been a usable, considerable project. Java's a big thing now, Java's everywhere, Java could probably use a wordprocessor. But they didn't bother to let that happen.

And then the linux thing. Everyone said it was a neat distro, not *very* revolutionary, but that it needed more work. Did they do the work? Did they develop the product until it lived up to its stated goals? Did they even maintain it long enough for it to take hold? No, they just went "hm, this isn't taking over the world overnight, it probably isn't worth the bother". Then they ran out of money.

I don't know what's up with this .NET or XML things, but i'm willing to bet that Corel won't really bother coming up with a reason why you should be excited or whatever that they're using .NET and XML now, and they won't explore or exploit the possible benefits of .NET and XML being part of their architecture, whatever those are.

This is, of course, just my perception of things, and i could be wrong, but *shrugs*.

So long, and thanks for all the text!

[Jedi Holocron]

90% loss or a $122m investment in their own products??? I think the point is that MS invested in Corel to kill it are accurate. I think many pointed this out when it first happened and predicted the demise of Corel to come...

Well, here it may be!

I personally prefer WordPerfect as a word processor application. I feel it is more intuitive, more versitile, easier to control, what not than MS Word. I hate Word. If not for WP I'd have died trying to write my masters thesis. MS doesn't have a superior product, they have a superior suite that most people use because it is on their machines when they get them. And hence it has become a default. WP & MS are not interoperable (and MS will keep it that way) and so WP has no chance at competition.

Sorry, I rant now. WP lost and sadly I must now resort to Word because to many of my coworkers complained about all my files saved as .wpd and not .doc. But it's not because Word is superior.

Carry on.

The shortest distance between to puns is a straight line.

Corel/Wordperfect

[bloosqr]

The death of Corel was due to Corel and no one else. They had what everyone wanted a well done office suite that was stable had been running for years on both windows and X platforms (The older versions of wordperfect had solaris binaries for instance). Even today, there is no comparision between wordperfect and koffice or even openoffice (though open office is improving). What Corel did, and I really find this unforgivable, was they got the brainiac idea to "sync" the two versions of the code base (X and window) by using wine! As a result wordperfect 2000 was basically an unusable piece of crap. It was horribly buggy and crashed so often that the corel newsgroups encouraged people to stick w/ free wordperfet 8. Corel jumped on the bandwagon (linux desktop) a bit too early and they simply fucked up on the delivery. People *WANT* a usable linux desktop. but the office suite actually has to *work*. Lets put it this way, walmart is currently selling walmart linux boxes by the droves right? How much more lucrative would it be to sell those things w/ an existing, commercial office suite thats actually been running for ages? Even businesses would find wordperfect far more usable than open office for windows->linux secretarial conversions.

In any case converting to wine was as stupid as rewriting wordperfect in java (which apparantly they tried to do). If they had gotten a decent set of coders to keep a native unix set with decent wrappers they could easily have grabbed the market. The conclusion they drew from being burned by the linux sector (i.e. non selling product) wasn't the wrong conclusion because essentially they were selling a broken, nonworking product that they had no idea how to support.

-bloo

MISSING THE POINT on Corel

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are missing the point. Microsoft didn't kill Corel, Michael Cowpland (former CEO and flamboyant goofball) killed it. He (a) bought the Wordperfect suite after it stumbled badly with windows; (b) rewrote it all in java; (c) rewrote it all for Linux; (d) bought the Xerox Ventura suite; and (e) declared war on microsoft.

Mikie has some problems. Like god complex. And a show wife who wore slinky outfits and threw huge parties. He sent a postcard out to people with his blonde babe wife sprawled over his lamborghini.

Corel began as the first high-end graphics package provider for Windows 3.0 (actually it started with hardware, but graphics made Corel an international company).

If Mikie had kept his eye on the ball and stuck with graphics with an increasing emphasis on web and perhaps looking into media, streaming video, backends etc, it would never have gone down the rathole of wordprocessing suites.

The new CEO seems to be concentrating on graphics again. Maybe he can get somewhere.

Microsoft only became relevant because Mikie didn't stick with core competencies.

Re:MISSING THE POINT on Corel

[oogoliegoogolie]

Jezuz, I forgot all about their little stunt in trying to rewrite WP in java. My god what were they thinking?

Finally a definitive account of the Corel's shoddy history instead of the kneejerk "It's all Microsofts fault" reaction. Michael Cowpland is the reason Corel is where they are today. He was noting but a blowhard. Corel developed one good product (Draw) and everything else they acquired from other companies, usually knee-jerk reactions to jump on the latest bandwagon at the time . Remember "thin-clients?" Remember "Corel-Linux?"

Combine that with the fact that Corel couldn't market water in the middle of the desert and it's obvious that MS isn't the main reason why they are going down the drain.

MS didn't kill Wordperfect.

[NineNine]

Corel Did. MS did NOT own a majority share in Corel, thus they couldn't do anything in the company without support. Corel's horrible management killed Corel. They should have just stuck with what they were good at. Instead, they jumped on (and are continuing to jump on) ev ery trendy bandwagon that rolls through the industry. Corel is irrelevant. Too bad WP is gone. I use Textpad now, but it would've been nice to have something with a few more features.

not quite

[RelliK]

What Corel did, and I really find this unforgivable, was they got the brainiac idea to "sync" the two versions of the code base (X and window) by using wine!

No, what Corel did, back in 95 or so was simply drop WP on all platforms but Windows and started to compete with Microsoft head to head on Microsoft's own platform. We all know how well that turned out. When Linux became a buzzword and Corel was looking for a new bandwagon to jump on, they simply couldn't produce a native version of WP in a reasonable timeframe, so they just hacked it until it ran under WINE without crashing too much. When I downloaded a trial version of WP8 for Linux, my first reaction was "are they actually trying to sell this thing?". I had the same impression about their distribution: a good start, but far, far from a finished product.

Had they kept the Unix ports going, they would have been able to provide a high-quality office suite for Linux. The last version of WP I used was WP8 (for Windows), and I certainly would have paid for a Linux version. But no, I am not interested in half-assed wine hacks.

Anyway, the story of Corel is truly sad. They were an awesome graphics company back in early 90s, but they kept making one boneheaded decision after another. This is a perfect example of how *not* to run a company.