Rod,
There are many problems with Corel; its had a bad run
over the years with lots of missed opportunities. Management and its infrastructure is largely to blame.
Unfortunately, Copeland the main culprit, won't let go. Although he started Mitel and is scholarly, he knows nothing about running a company. Terrence Matthews used to be the but of all jokes in those days at Mitel but I believe Newbridge is in better shape today than Corel (even though they are look for suitors). Copeland is no Gates, Jobs, Steve Case, or Richard Branson, actually, he's belongs in the same league as Phillip Khan. He will quickly align himself publicly with the enemies of his enemies without thinking of the ramifications. He jumped onto the Java development bandwagon without taking a serious look. He hates Microsoft big time. The final straw when he seemed to have lost it was when Microsoft chose to use Micrographix drawing software over his own.
Corel has not been able to capitalize on developing
new and exciting products, let alone buy other companies
that add strategic value. Beyond Copeland's short comings,
a lot of bad development has gone on. Corel doesn't seem to learn from their failures. After the following two failures, my patience wore out with this company.
1) Attempting to rewrite their office product in Java without fully investigating the suitability of Java.
2) Attempting to develop a PDA that could have been where
the Palm Pilot is today.
I would love to know how Corel expects to grow its revenue
base. IMHO, large multi-billion dollar businesses are where
the money is at. Microsoft dominates there and thus at the homes of those who work there. If Linux is to penetrate that market, how will that segment be supported ? Microsoft has a Solution Provider program and ultimately has control of the source code. How will Corel capitalize and
structure custom development work with big outfits such as defence and government work ? How will changes be co-ordinated with Redhat and other independent developers ?
Aside from Linux, what other growth opportunities exist for Corel ?
Also IMHO, until purchased games are made to run on Linux instead of Windows, Linux will not move into the mainstream.
I have been using Linux, freebd, bsd386, bsdi and other OS's but I still need a Windows box to run games for my kids and do work that uses formats that other co-workers
can use.
NS |
