Generation Linux -- How VARs took a free OS and turned it into a money-making enterprise
...Across the border, Corel Corp. believes it can build an entire business on Linux. The Ottawa, Canada, developer shipped its first Linux-compatible app, WordPerfect 7, in 1996, and it plans to have WordPerfect Office 2000 and CorelDraw for Linux available this fall. That would expose Linux to 45 million CorelDraw and WordPerfect users, the company says. More than 900,000 copies of WordPerfect 8.0 for Linux have been downloaded off the Web since it was made available by Corel last December.
To help Linux succeed on the desktop, Corel is developing its own Linux desktop OS, which will be available free to the open source community. It hopes to bundle a version along with its Linux applications in the fall. Some 400 Corel VARs have shown interest in the company's upcoming Linux products, says Norm McConkey, North American VAR sales director at Corel. Burned by the unfulfilled promise of Java, Corel now believes it has found its future in Linux. "Linux is not just an OS with promise," McConkey says. "It's here now and bulletproof."
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