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Technology Stocks : Corel Corp. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: A. Reader who wrote (6554)	4/15/1999 6:54:00 PM
From: Gutterball	Respond to of 9798

Shareholders OK Poison Pill At Canada's Corel TORONTO (Reuters) - Shareholders of Canadian software maker Corel Corp. (Nasdaq:COSFF - news) voted 87.8 percent in favor of installing a shareholder rights plan at the company's annual meeting Wednesday. The plan was unveiled on February 11 following persistent rumors that Ottawa-based Corel had been approached with a takeover offer by California-based Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq:ADBE - news) Corel management denied that the company, a small designer that has gone toe to toe with Goliath Microsoft Corp. in the office suite market, had been a takeover target for Adobe, the world's largest maker of digital publishing software. During the meeting, an audio portion of which was broadcast over the Internet, Chief Executive and founder Michael Cowpland was upbeat about Corel's prospects in the upcoming months despite the company's intermittent flows of red ink over the past few quarters. ''We're very confident about this quarter and the quarters ahead,'' he said, his reedy voice crackling over the Internet on the company's Web site. This year Corel will unveil a slew of product updates, which management said will boost sales. According to Corel, its flagship WordPerfect office suite has 22 million U.S. users, up 10 percent in the last 12 months, compared with 44 million for Microsoft's rival product Word. ''This is great news. It shows we've turned the tide,'' Cowpland said. ''And we think we'll do far better than this in the months ahead.'' Corel shares closed C$0.04 lower at C$4.51 on the Toronto Stock Exchange Wednesday. Their 52-week high is C$8.05. ($1-$1.49 Canadian) Earlier Stories

To: A. Reader who wrote (6554)	4/15/1999 6:56:00 PM
From: Gutterball	Respond to of 9798

Look at the bright side. If Adobe takes Corel over, we could get rid of cowpie and that thing that takes on all comers.

To: A. Reader who wrote (6554)	4/16/1999 2:51:00 AM
From: Kashish King	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9798

I would not rule out trading Corel but not based on comments from the ring leader. First it was Java, then it was the Network Computer and now it's Linux. What people fail to realize is that Cowpland is just jumping on bandwagons, allocating resources and falling flat on his face because of poor process, a lack of structure and poor planning. The bandwagons continue to roll on, without Corel. He's been fueling on these failed efforts with sales of some legacy software that has been essentially complete for ten years. Corel was not even responsible for maintenance on the Office Suite until they closed down the Utah facility. Remember that? He announced that the company needed its talent for upcoming growth and would not be laying anybody off. He had a typically irresponsible policy of not laying people off: thus jeopardizing the jobs of everyone, including his own, and putting shareholders in peril. When his job really was on the line, he shut down the entire Utah operation, that is what we are dealing with here. You know what his excuse was? That they essentially had to lie until the transition plan was in place. That is, he publicly demonstrated that he'll lie when it suites him. How would a competent CEO handle this? When asked about layoffs they would state that "The company is continually looking for ways to streamline operations and increase focus for the health of the company and the overall health of our employees. From time to time, that can include personel reductions. Periodic layoffs aren't a bad thing and there's never been a better time to move forward for an employee who has been trimmed than now. So the point is, you can't trust a word he says and you can't trust his judgement. He's demonstrated that he doesn't have a junior level manager's skills in terms of running the company. He simply owns lots of stock and has managed to milk a product or two that was fortunate enough to be in the game very early and establish a client base.