DECEMBER 16, 1999
Corel Partners with S3's Professional Graphics Division
to Deliver 2D/3D Graphics to Linux(r) Desktop
OTTAWA, CANADA--SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA--Corel Corporation
(NASDAQ: CORL, TSE: COR) and S3(r) Incorporated's (NASDAQ: SIII)
Professional Graphics Division today announced a new partnership
to deliver 2D/3D graphics to the Linux desktop. A new 2D Linux
driver for the Diamond Fire GL series, starting with the Fire
GL1(tm) professional graphics accelerator, is available for
download at www.firegl.com and will also be bundled in the
Corel(r) LINUX(r) OS, beginning in the spring of 2000. Earlier
this month, Corel LINUX OS received CNET "Editors' Choice" as the
best of seven major Linux distributions reviewed.
"The Linux page on the Corel web site has received a tremendous
number of visits," said Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief
executive officer of Corel Corporation. "We believe that Linux is
the operating system of the future and are developing a wide-range
of productivity and graphics applications for this powerful
operating system. The Diamond Fire GL brand provides top-notch
hardware performance with its specially-designed Linux driver for
2D/3D desktop graphics."
Corel recently released its first Linux operating system, Corel
LINUX OS, and is currently developing office and graphics suites
for Linux. Corel(r) WordPerfect(r) Suite 8 has been hugely
successful as a free download: the office suite for Linux is
scheduled to be available in early 2000. The CorelDRAW(r) graphics
suite for Linux is scheduled to be available in the summer of
2000.
"Corel's success in creating an easy-to-use Linux OS has made the
company a major player in this emerging market," said Ian
Cartwright, president of S3's Professional Graphics Division. "We
have committed to provide Linux driver support for the Diamond
Fire GL1 accelerator as well as future generations of the
award-winning Fire GL brand. With the Diamond Fire GL1 and Corel
LINUX, we can offer customers a complete Linux solution for the
desktop."
Most graphics cards that currently support the Linux operating
environment have required the assistance of third-party companies
for the development of Linux drivers. The 2D Linux driver for the
Diamond Fire GL1 accelerator, however, was completely developed
in-house by engineers in S3's professional graphics division.
This in-house development has provided for performance
enhancements through various customizations and optimizations for
the Fire GL1 accelerator and future generations of hardware in
Linux-based systems. The Fire GL1's new 2D Linux driver also
supports software versions from Red Hat Software and SuSE, Inc.
The 3D Linux driver version for the Diamond Fire GL1 is planned
for the first quarter of the year 2000 for inclusion within Corel
LINUX OS. The new 3D driver will include an implementation of
OpenGL, also an open standard, as a 3D API for Linux.
Featuring IBM's first graphics chipset for the Windows NT
platform, the Diamond Fire GL1 accelerator delivers the first
256-bit engine for Windows NT and brings powerful graphics
performance to NT workstations. Available in PCI and AGP
configurations, the Diamond Fire GL1 comes with 32MB of memory
and is priced at $995.00 estimated retail price. The Diamond Fire
GL1 accelerator includes software settings for various ISV
applications as well as a full suite of software drivers.
Additional information about the Fire GL brand of professional
graphics accelerators is available at www.firegl.com.
JOhn |
