Mike,
Thanks for your speculative, yet provocative, view of the stock. I also took a look of the article recommended by mike assad. A good read.
Corel may be helped by a legal action suing Microsoft. If it does not turn around on its own and is not helped by the court, it could also be bought by one of Microsoft's competitors. The desk top application market is too important and too big to be monopolized by Microsoft.
WP is still alive, especially among early adopters of PC. This week alone, I received two e-mail attachments in WP. I work in an academic environment. So, my sample may be biased.
There is little question that WP is a viable product. The main problem is that standardization is much preferred in workplace. So, as long as WP is not fully compatible with MS Office, WP has a hard time being accepted.
Does anyone recall the early success of Quattro Pro put out by Borland? It was cheap and was fully compatible with Lotus 123 (including file format and macro, by option). Unfortunately, it was stalled by Lotus's court challenge. Given today's legal climate, it is hard to imagine that the court will be sympathetic to Microsoft's complaints if Corel makes a MS-compatible WP Suite. I think this is where Corel may benefit from the recent legal action against Microsoft -- a more antitrust climate. |
