Corel Plans Asia Pacific HQ In Sydney
Newsbytes - April 07, 2000 06:01
SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA, 2000 APR 7 (NB) -- By David Frith, Computer Daily News. Canada's Corel Corporation [NASDAQ:CORL] is to set up an Asia-Pacific headquarters in Sydney, as it gears for a big push into the desktop Linux scene, president/CEO Michael Cowpland has revealed during a brief Sydney visit.
It will share offices with Inprise/Borland, subject of a planned merger with Corel, reports online Australian news service ITNews.
Cowpland told the news service around five percent of Corel software sales worldwide in the first quarter of this year were on the Linux platform.
Over the next two quarters, Linux sales should reach 10 percent of total revenue, said Cowpland. "Within a few years we'll be 50/50 (Linux versus Windows)," he added.
"We'll probably do about US$20 million globally selling Linux software this year," Cowpland said. This would equate to under 10 percent of Corel's $250 million in global revenues.
He added: "We want to make sure we're the king of the hill on the Linux side. The market is now moving from Microsoft proprietary to open web standards."
Corel is looking to take equity stakes in Linux vendors in Australia and across the Asia-Pacific region, said Cowpland.
Patrina Gaskin has been named Corel's Sydney-based regional manager, Pacific Rim, reporting to Sandie Overtveld, Corel's vice president, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. |
