Dow Jones story...
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Corel Corp., the Canadian company with
ambitious plans to transform itself into a software powerhouse, Wednesday warned it will post a widened loss for the third quarter.
Corel (COSFF) said it expects to post a loss of about $32 million
on
revenue of $54 million for the quarter. In the year-ago period, Corel announced a loss of $3.2 million, or five cents a share, on sales of $85
million.
However, Corel said it received and shipped $96 million worth of
orders but couldn't record all of that as revenue for the period because
of accounting guidelines. It did not elaborate. Corel also said its cash
levels remain at about $20 million, about the same as in the second quarter of 1997.
Corel said it expects increased sales in the fourth quarter,
traditionally an active period with fall and Christmas sales, as a result of new products, "aggressive market promotion and a concentrated
focus on significant strategic alliances." Corel said its corporate sales have grown nearly 35% in the past 12 months and is engaged in a number of pilot programs involving large corporate accounts.
Corel also said it recently appointed Don Sylvester, a former
corporate- sales executive in Dell Computer Corp., as senior vice-president of sales.
For much of this year, Corel has been shedding noncore assets and
revamping its operations to focus on developing its suite of WordPerfect
business-application programs and graphics products. Like other software
makers, Corel has been fighting to withstand Microsoft Corp.'s relentless assault. Microsoft's Office 97, the upgrade of its popular business applications package, began shipping earlier this year.
Corel has also placed a bet on the much-hyped Java
Internet-programming language. While widespread deployment of Java is still a long time away, one of the most closely watched has been Corel's
Office for Java suite. Test versions of the suite, which includes the WordPerfect wordprocessor, the QuattroPro database and the Paradox spreadsheet, have been circulating since January. In addressing one persistent criticism of Java, Corel has said that the product will run as fast in Java as the non-Java version.
In "preliminary discussions with customers, we are finding strong
corporate interest in our enterprise Java strategy," Corel said. But Corel earlier this year scaled back its original plan to Java-ize its entire suite of applications - a plan that once had been considered a potential blow to Microsoft's main revenue producer, the Office suite.
When the Ottawa-based company disclosed a prototype Java suite of
programs last year, the move was seen as yet another indication of Java's momentum; Corel even ran TV commercials describing how the flagship program would soon be energized by the new technology.
But Corel's Java prototype was substantially slower than
conventional
versions, had fewer features, and missed shipment deadlines. The company
greatly scaled back its effort and now plans to use the new technology in other, limited ways.
Corel rocketed to success in the early 1990s on the popularity of
its
graphics-software program, CorelDraw. But it has remained largely a one-product company in the minds of many buyers and some analysts have given it little chance of ompeting with Microsoft and others in the lucrative suite market.
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Vanni |
