Chairman Chainsaw: Leo, You're making "perfect sense" here. "Random walks" have become management's trademark. When Corel divested itself of the educational and games multimedia titles, I figured this was an attempt to focus. But there was no effective marketing effort to determine the viability of those products. The development of these titles, to start with, demonstrated lack of FOCUS with the Suite, but once developed, Corel shed them declaring the market "too crowded." Again, they put out a sign for "lemonade" and expected people to buy.
I personally tried to buy Chemlab for my kids, looked for it on retail shelves, asked retail personnel, and no-one I asked had even heard of it. Next thing you know, Corel sheds those titles to Hoffman with the hope of future royalties. They acted so quickly in "developing and shedding," that selling the products were never part of the equation.
Had Corel had a decent business plan and done their homework, they might have saved a small fortune in development costs and never "wandered" (RANDOM WALKS)into that path to begin with.
Now Corel invested another small fortune to bring a Cad products, Flowcharting, the Family History Program, Timeline, etc. And with no real marketing effort, has rid themselves of the problem of selling those products with the hope of future royalties. How do you think the $5.6 M price Corel is receiving for these titles stacks up against development costs absorbed in previous quarters?
FOCUS ON THE SUITE IMMEDIATELY FOR CASH AND PROFITS. Create a sensible business plan for long term profits, without relying on risky unproven technology to be the core of that plan.
Cut, Cut, Away!
Scott |
