Corel Corporation is bigger than ever, with over 1,500 employees filling out one large building and two satellite sites. Nonetheless, the teams involved with sales, marketing, art direction, and product development seem more focused than I can ever recall.
There is a buzz in the air at 1600 Carling Ave. An explicit sense that treading water is no longer the aim, that reacting to competition no longer acceptable. A palpable feeling that Corel is directing traffic, as it had in the early- to mid-1990s.
What a difference a year makes.
In 1998, Corel was wandering, and you could count the departures of key personnel with the hour hand of your watch. The company's No. 1 objective was just to show a profit. Even a few pennies per share would have been welcome, given the multi-quarter freefall the company had endured in the aftermath of the Wordperfect acquisition and the growing realization that, suddenly, Corel was doing business squarely against Microsoft.
Today, the situation is the same... only different. Public Enemy No. 1 is still Microsoft for business applications ("bizapps," if you want to sound cool), and Adobe on the graphics side. But the talk is no longer about whom Corel is chasing; instead, it's all about the trail that Corel is blazing. And that hit home with piercing acuity the day before I set foot on the premises, as Corel's shares on NASDAQ rocketed up 45% to an all-time high.
Wall St. analysts didn't know that I was planning a visit-there was another reason for the net worth of over 1500 employees to double, triple, and quadruple in one afternoon.
You see, someone with an Internet connection but with no actual knowledge of anything relevant reported that a major technology firm was interested in making a bid for Corel. Both companies denied the report, and the stock instantly settled back down by 10 points, still up by almost half its value. Day traders were busy wetting their pants.
Yes, what a difference a year makes. A year ago, it was Microsoft, and then Adobe, rumored to be the suitors for this crippled graphics firm with no direction and no hope of catching up. Now, Corel calls its own shots, and the explanation is of the one-word variety: LINUX.
The hottest ticket on the Internet right now is this ABM operating system (c'mon get a clue... Anything But Microsoft). LINUX is free for the downloading, operational on servers and desktops alike, and is presided over by a benevolent dictator who insists that all improvements made by developers be immediately donated to the public domain.
LINUX is the Internet's new killer app, and Corel is riding high on its bandwagon. Everywhere you go in the Corel building, you see the ubiquitous penguin, the now-official mascot of the operating system (so deemed because founding father Linus Torvalds was bitten by one of the arctic creatures as a child).
So why should you care? Why would a CorelDRAW-toting Windows user care if the company allows itself to get distracted by a longshot operating system that is represented by a penguin?
Answer: Because the next version of DRAW that you buy just might run under LINUX. And you won't buy it because you have to; you'll buy it because you want to.
This is a rash statement, granted, and we're not above making end-of-the-year (let alone end-of-the-century) predictions that risk our being laughed at later. But there are several signs that this is not the longshot that you might think:
Corel's LINUX desktop is not nearly as user-abusive as some of the LINUX incarnations that preceded it. It installs in about 20 minutes, finds hardware by itself, and doesn't ask you a million questions about things you know nothing about. LINUX is about 100 times more reliable than Windows.
It's faster.
Corel has committed to full-scale LINUX development for 2000 rollouts. This includes Wordperfect (which is already there), CorelDRAW, and Ventura.
And it looks just like Windows.
This last point is a curious one. We use something right now that looks like Windows, feels like Windows, and functions just like Windows. It's called Windows.
Why switch away from something to something else that looks just like the first something you're trying to get away from? It all depends upon why you're trying to get away from it.
If you hate Windows: Then LINUX will have immediate appeal, because it can have one of countless GUI interfaces designed over its top. You could even design one yourself.
If you hate Microsoft: Well, LINUX is your cat's meow, because it is making the big red machine sweat more than the Justice Department is right now.
If you hate crashing: Ask early adopters if they can remember the last time they crashed a LINUX machine. They either won't be able to remember, or they will tell you with a straight face that they have not yet crashed.
If you hate change: Then score another one for Corel's LINUX Desktop, which looks and feels just like Windows, right down to the wallpaper you can place on your desktop.
So all in all, the potential exists for an operating system that will look and feel much like the one you use today, but will be much more stable, cost as little as nothing, and will be evolved and improved upon by every known LINUX developer on the planet, not just by one large company that thinks it knows what's best for us.
Within two months, we will dedicate a column to our experiences switching one of our machines over to the Corel LINUX Desktop. We'll chronicle every success and failure. But in the meantime, will Corel's successes translate into good fortune for its graphics customers? Ever since Corel acquired Wordperfect, that has stood as the $64,000 question: Can Corel keep its eye on the graphic ball? Or will DRAW, PAINT, and Ventura slide down the totem pole?
With a market value and a capitalization many times greater than it was just a few months ago, the company is once again in position to acquire significant resources for product development. Corel President Michael Cowpland is just an e-mail message away - let him know where you think some of those resources should go. Let him know that your first loyalty is to the software. Windows... LINUX... Mac... all well and good - you just want excellent software to use.
Good fortune begets good cheer, and if the mood in the building is any indication, Corel begins a new century with morale that has not been felt in years. It's not just that their stock options are suddenly so attractive; the mood of the employees runs deeper than that. There is focus and direction; things are happening; the pace is up; the press is talking about them again; people in Ottawa speak of Corel in terms beyond Marlen's dresses; technologists want to work for Corel again. And another thing: Corel is actually advertising again, and the ads look pretty good for a change. It's not so much that Corel has finally gotten some good designers in the building; it's that Corel is finally letting those good designers do the designing, without all of the executive interference that had become notorious throughout the 1990s.
If LINUX created all of this, that can't be a bad thing. If CorelDRAW gets a tenth of the trickle-down, that would be a very good thing.
