Rod, I'll bite. I was once accused on this thread for analyzing "yesterday's news." But lately, you've made me look like an amateur.
Three months ago, if Corl was at $15 or $16, we would have been singing praises to Dr. Cowpland. But somehow because Corl hit $44 and receded, we seem to be crying over the problems of the past.
Can we fault Dr. C for trading the outcome of Office for Java, jBridge, to GraphOn in exchange for 25% equity in the company. Even after today's misery, Corel's stake in GOJO is worth some $42 million. I would say Dr. Cowpland has made some pretty good lemonade out of the sour Java lemon.
As to Corel Computer, the value of the Rebel.com investment will not be known until the IPO, but its another move to recover and profit from the effort. Further, if Corel had not gone into the thin client area, they might not have capitalized on the Linux opportunity when they did. I'm sure the best of Linux is still down the road.
You did actually mis-state some facts about Corel Linux that should be corrected. First, Corel did not a include a "light" version of Corel Office, it didn't include any Office at all. Corel included a light version of WP 8 for Linux with the shrink wrapped standard version of Corel Linux. The deluxe version contains WP 8 for Linux complete with 250 fonts. Quite frankly, the deluxe version of Linux has many desirable extras.
Further, Corel has vastly improved the KDE GUI and provided it with a far more "windows like" look and feel. As to Debian, it is the most reliable and stable flavor of Linux, which was carefully chosen for those essential characteritics.
As to the installation of Linux, Corel has advanced the state of the art far beyond any other distributor, not to mention Windows.
I'll argue with you on the merits of Star Office. It's a product far closer to Microsoft Works than a full featured office suite. Corel's office for Linux will be the first industrial strength office suite available for Linux. From the demo at Comdex, it looks mighty nice. It'll be out shortly and when it is, it will add to the desirability of deploying Linux on the desktop as well as at the server level. The desktop market is exponential compared to the server market.
Even as we argue, Corel engineers are busy working on their next iteration of Corel Linux. It will include the coming Kernel 2.4 complete with USB support, more drivers, and improvement in the interface.
Have you considered that a new version of the Suite is being created? Maybe it'll one-up MSFT.
Cheer Up,
Scott
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