Mike,
Thought I'd post this from 8/10/97 mostly because of the following two statements:
Regards,
Kurt P.
"The launch of the VNC is going to coincide with the launch of CorelDRAW 8. "That will take place at the annual gala, held this year at the Corel Centre Oct. 27, where the winners of the $3 million Corel Word Design Contest are to be announced...
..."What we're trying to build in Ottawa is another Dell or Gateway," says Eid referring to two highly successful entries in the computing world. "But we're going to do it with a value add, because Corel has both the hardware and the
applications."
August 10, 1997
A FIRST LOOK AT COREL
COMPUTER
By STUART McCARTHY
Ottawa Sun
THERE are no signs, rows of wires and stacks of boxes are everywhere. But beyond the funky reception area with its wall of TV monitors automatically flipping to
different images, staff are working furiously to turn Corel Computer Corp. from a concept to reality.
"We've got these two floors and options on three more," Oliver Bendzsa, Corel Computer's spokesman says of the new digs on Isabella St. at O'Connor St.
The walls are decked out in a new Tex Mex color combo of mustard, teal and a purplish-blue. "The carpet looks expensive but it really isn't," Bendzsa says of the rug with nifty geometric
shapes woven into it. And it might not be long before Corel Computer exercises its option on the extra space.
"We've already added 20 people," says Eid Eid, who after eight years as Corel's chief technology officer under president and founder Mike Cowpland, is now a president himself, of Corel Computer.
But his 81 staff -- 10% of parent Corel's workforce, has a long way to grow if as Eid says, "The NC (Network computer) is core to the future of Corel as a corporate entity." For now Corel's NC or as it is formally called, the Video Network Computer doesn't really
exist, except for a few prototypes. For now, Corel Computer is a one-product company, selling Corel's existing Corel Video
system to the corporate world.
But over the next three months, all that's about to change.
In one corner of the building, a group of technicians and designers are huddled around workstations and a couple of loonie-sized video cameras without cases tethered to the back of
the computer. They're the prototypes for a digital compression video camera which Corel is planning to market. It's a collaborative effort using Sanyo components, with Corel developing the casing and
the software.
The camera will plug straight into a computer serial port.
Corel Video currently piggy backs through phone systems and Eid says the company is developing a version that will function on a corporate LAN (local area network) using Internet protocols. But the flagship product will definitely be the VNC. "We started development about seven months ago and the product should be shipping in low
quantity in October," says Eid. "The launch of the VNC is going to coincide with the launch of CorelDRAW 8. "That will take place at the annual gala, held this year at the Corel Centre Oct. 27, where the winners of the $3 million Corel Word Design Contest are to be announced.
That's several months later than planned, but Eid blames -- naturally -- technical problems. "We wanted the product earlier in the summer, but we had to change the selection of the CPU (central processing unit)," he says. Corel initially based the VNC on a compact version of the Motorola-IBM PowerPC chip
which is what currently drives most Apple Macintosh computers and a variety of clones.
Corel is now going with the cheaper Digital Equipment Corp. StrongArm chip, which has raw processing power of 230 Mhz, which will deliver 200 Mhz speed as a complete unit.
Eid says the price point is about $30 US per chip ("an order of magnitude less" than what the PowerPC chip would cost. But that also meant changing the onboard real-time operating system. Corel Computer's initial selection was from a company called Microware, but that company's OS supports the PowerPC chip, not the StrongArm, Eid says. The choice of the new OS hasn't been finalized, but Eid says one of the strong contenders is
Ottawa's QNX software, which is making waves with a recent offering that saw them put a real-time OS, a Web browser and dial-up software on a single 1.4MB floppy disc a far cry from the "bloat ware" that forced the world to switch to CD-ROMs to handle the massive size of software. "Where we are is at the debugging stage of the hardware and the final board," says Eid.
For instance, the StrongArm chip mounts differently from the Power PC chip, meaning all the main contacts had to be rotated 90 degrees. "On the software side, the VNC will be offered in two stages," says Eid. "The first stage will have a real-time OS and the Java virtual machine running on top of it." The VNC will have a Web-style interface and it will come with a suite of accessories, primarily e-mail, browsing, scheduling and personal information management. The second stage roll-out, which Eid says will take place in the fourth quarter or the first quarter of 1998, "will have the real heavy duty office automation in Java." Eid says Corel has no plans to bring out a box which uses a Windows-based operating system
-- Java is the only road that Corel thinks makes sense.
"What makes us attractive is Java, it is processor independent and platform independent," says Eid. And Eid is the first to admit the VNC isn't for everybody.
"We don't want to be pretentious and say, `Here's an NC that will replace all your desktop
functions and solve all your problem'," he says. For now, Eid says most of Corel Computer's
staff are in research, development and design supported by a dedicated sales force. The company shares many of the parent's resources, such as finance, human resources,
advertising, marketing and more.
"When we decide to do an IPO (initial public offering) which could take place in 12 to 18
months ... we would have to become a more self-contained operation," says Eid.
Even as president, Eid says, "You're never you're own boss," especially with someone like
Cowpland who Eid calls "a very active chairman." We have a separate building which lets the staff focus on their primary function without being swallowed in a sea of Draw and
WordPerfect." But Eid says if anything, his personality is a lot like Cowpland's when it comes to work.
"I like to have lots of input as well because I'm an engineering person at heart."
Eid says he's "itching, very anxious" to see the product finally hit the street. "What we're trying to build in Ottawa is another Dell or Gateway," says Eid referring to two highly successful entries in the computing world. "But we're going to do it with a value add, because Corel has both the hardware and the applications." |
