Corel To Test WordPerfect For Linux 426
prostoalex writes "CNET News says Corel will introduce a native Linux version of its WordPerfect Office product on April 15th . This will be a pilot project, as Corel executives want to find out whether it's worth competing with the other products (namely StarOffice and OpenOffice)." The piece mentions: "Corel previously produced a Linux-native version of WordPerfect 8, released in 1998, and offered a Linux-translated version of WordPerfect 9 in 2000, when Linux was still a cornerstone of the company's broader strategy."
Lets hope Corel doesn't screw this up. (Score:5, Interesting)
What I always found odd was the fact that WP hasn't been ported to the Apple Mac OS X environment. They could probably do some good business because a lot of the time the Apple users only use office is because there is no decent alternative. Appleworks just stinks, OpenOffice is not quite there yet for the mac. WP would be a good more affordable solution on the mac platform as well.
Problems with i18n'ed versions (Score:5, Interesting)
You could say that WordPerfect was effectively unusable. As this didn't change with the update of WP 7 to WP 8 (AFAIR), I stopped trying. At that time, I got the impression that Corel was not quite sure about the competitiveness of their own product and preferred the option of letting it die slowly.
I hope that the people at Corel finally understand that there IS a problem and start fixing it.
One Major advantage. (Score:4, Interesting)
Just wondering (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To little to late? (Score:2, Interesting)
Is WordPerfect Office 11 compatible with other office suites and file formats?
Yes, WordPerfect Office 11 lets you share files with people and organizations using other applications and suites - including Microsoft Office. The flexible file-sharing capabilities of WordPerfect Office 11 allow you to publish to XML, PDF and HTML. Plus, enjoy support for many open standard technologies, including ODBC, SGML and OLAP.
So even if WordPerfect Office has its own file formats, it can export files to XML, making it easier for other Office Suites to open the files.
And there are HTML and PDF, which work nearly everywhere.
How about Corel Draw? (Score:5, Interesting)
It makes up for one of the largest gaps on Linux to date. Professional grafics tools.
It's also heavyly base on Wine, but it runs smooth and over the course of the last 2 years I've done some serious work with it.
I'd wish Corel would join with Trolltec and start porting their apps to QT, making them copmletely plattform agnostic. A lot of people would be willing to make the switch from Macromedia and Adobe back to a solid Draw and Photo Paint if only they would run on Linux.
Give me WP 5.1 for Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
Why the animosity? It's a good thing! (Score:5, Interesting)
It will also be a boon as I ease my mother's business onto Linux, since they interface with a number of law offices who still use Word Perfect.
Finally, I've had good luck with the WP file format and KWord, my preferred word processor (because I use Qt and am a bit lacking in the ram dept for OOo's liking), easing both file exchange with my mother and providing a convenient power-formatting application for stuff i've sketched in Kword (no, it isnt framemaker, but i'm a college student who has to write 30 page papers, not a doc writer). So i'm all for it.
The worst that can happen is that it fails, and since Corel isnt exactly a huge F/OSS contributor these days, that's no major loss either.
This would round out the choices (Score:5, Interesting)
The only versions of WP I've used were version 3 (on DOS) and versions 7 and 8 on Solaris (and never used any of them extensively). But I think WP now supports the OASIS Open Office XML Format [oasis-open.org]. If so, what's to prevent me from moving seamlessly between OO.org and WP, depending on the job?
I think there's a market.
Re:Lets hope Corel doesn't screw this up. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One Major advantage. (Score:1, Interesting)
The retraining is being done. People are migrating. It would be harder to remain with WP when the focus is on Word in that community.
I for one look forward to this (Score:5, Interesting)
8 for Linux was a bit awkward but it worked, reliably, and I enjoyed it until suddenly it wouldn't work anymore because of my libc version. 2000, well, I really liked the consistency of the Linux and Windows versions; however, printing was difficult and reliability was awful (most crashes were font-related, though, and I blame Wine for many of them).
Another post asks "Why WP when OpenOffice is out there?" You might also ask "Why OO when Word is out there?" or "Why Gnome when there's KDE?" or even "Why Linux when we have Windows?" It's about choice. Some people, myself included, dislike OO immensely. Why? Because it imitates Word, both the UI and the underlying structure of how it formats documents. I've hated Word and its imitators since the DOS version.
I'm not going to argue about whether or not Reveal Codes is philosophically correct or not. *I* like it. *I* am the consumer, and it's what I prefer to use. I hope it's successful; right now I use VMware to run the Windows version, but would much prefer to run natively.
Price? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just a rewarming of old WP8? (Score:3, Interesting)
I fail to see what the point is though, especially after Microsoft used their devious October 2000 investment in Corel to turn the then-Linux powerhouse into a submissive .NET supporter and last year Microsoft engineered the even more devious privatization of Corel using Paul Allen's money and a motley crew of former Microsoft executives, "joint Corel and Microsoft consultants", all apparently planned by Microsoft's investment and business development unit (which makes MS money work for MS business strategy), made infamous by the recent SCO funding revelations.
Is the Corel management perhaps finally under some kind of investigation and this "proof-of-concept" WordPerfect (wordprocessor only?) dealie is supposed to prove the new MS-leaning owners' credentials as "genuine independents"?
Will Microsoft be soon promoting a new Gartner study claiming that Linux productivity app market is dead because nobody is buying a recompiled and nearly 10 years old WP8?
Re:Lets hope Corel doesn't screw this up. (Score:2, Interesting)
also maybe theyre looking at the future. if linux ever does become main stream, and i believe it will (so do they probably), they will have made friends with the linux community, have a product that people know works on linux, and people wont just think they jumped on the band wagon when it suited them.
Problem is, if the "linux will be mainstream one day" is as accurate as "BSD is dying".....
Better strategy for Corel is... (Score:3, Interesting)
They should release WordPerfect that is native to Mac OSX.
The geniuses at Corel will probably wait until they discover on their own that Linux users will refuse to pay for WordPerfect--by then Mac OSX will have an office suite distributed by Apple and their window of opportunity will be gone.
This is almost as stupid as Borland not making their C++ compilers use the same name-mangling & object format as Visual C++ (doesn't matter who's is better, go with the defacto standard you morons because there's no telling how many developers stayed away from C++ Builder because of
Re:How about Corel Draw? (Score:4, Interesting)
corel could become big by making apps for linux that are sorely needed. wordperfect and the wordperfect suite are not sorely needed, to compete with a OSS and free package is pure suicide under linux. they need to fill the gaps that are there or are filled with really low quality or very very early but being developed super slow. Graphics and Video editing along with a desktop publishing is a place they could explode and ride the wave. video editing on linux is toy-like at best and wirks fine for someone messing with home movies or cutting commercials. trying to edit a full length feature or anything serious is impossible as the tools are not there or are very early alpha. Desk top publishing, there is one app for that and it doesn't compile on most distros without a dependancy hell that nobody but the linux experts are willing to tackle. Gimp 2.0 is a super step foreward but it is moving very slow and does not fill the need for a pure DRAWING app specifically a vector drawing app like corel draw.
I highly doubt that corel wil have the chutzpa to step up to the plate and make the decisions needed to try and become the company they once were in the late 80's early 90's.
Re:To little to late? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have paid Corel a few years ago for a *good* release of their software, but what they created with WINElib was just total crap. Now, we have OpenOffice, Star Office (free for education and research), KDE's Office suite, Gnome's Office software, and several other alternatives that really negate the need for Corel's software.
I could potentially see Corel's software as an alternative to Sun's supported software for business use. Howver, it is very doubtful that Corel will be able to persuade people to use this unless they convince OEMs to pack it in as an inexpensive alternative like they did two years ago on low end HP Pavillion PCs.
Maybe they'll be smart and support SXW and other open source office suite formats.
Re:To little to late? (Score:5, Interesting)
At least the WordPerfect document format is A) stable (WP6 can open documents created by WP11 without any Save As translation), and B) available to software developers.
I've rarely heard of users having difficulties opening WPD files with Word; the only problems I hear about have been going in the other direction... but Corel's gotten pretty good lately at overcoming the fact that Word's DOC format has been neither A nor B. The issue of file-format "incompatibility" is largely a matter of strategic obfuscation and FUD.
Re:One Major advantage. (Score:5, Interesting)
Mac Desktop market (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, No. In terms of sales, both Mac and Linux desktops are each 3-4% of the desktop market. Sales is not a good measure of Linux though, as its freely distributable. Also, a considerable number of desktop systems are purchased as Windows and then have Linux installed, so the Linux could well be at least a few percent higher. Incidentally, this implies that MS Windows sales don't correspond to use.
This would have thrilled me (Score:5, Interesting)
OpenOffice just released 1.1.1. They will likely release 2.0 sometime this year. Meanwhile, users of closed software will wait for fixes. I've gotten used to Mozilla/Firefox, OpenOffice, and a host of other programs that are released much more often than anything in the closed source world.
Beyond that, I've gotten used to not paying for these products. I'll give back in other ways (including donating money to support, just the same way that I support Public Radio), but I won't pay over $100 (US) for software any more. It doesn't fit my budget, it doesn't fit my view of how things should work.
All that said, were I still working at my old school which was a Mac shop, I would buy WP for Mac in a heartbeat. That they aren't developing for Mac baffles me. That's where commercial software ought to focus when they're looking for something other than Windows.
WP had a great run. the 5.1 version was insanely great. But the time for WP is likely past.
Now, if someone would implement the Reveal Codes feature in OpenOffice, every WP user could switch and I could be completely happy with OpenOffice.
Late move by Corel (Score:4, Interesting)
Then they came out with WPO 2000 which ran on Wine. While they did make many fantastic enhancements to wine, they should have never released their product on top of wine (I told their developers this). A native port would have been much more stable, better-received, and more widely supported.
I encouraged the adoption of WP Linux in my shop. We were WP only on all platforms. However, in the last 2 years, everyone is shifting to Word. I now try use OO, but often have to use Word due to esoteric formatting issues that I have to support.
The questions for Corel now are:
Note: WP file support by OO would benefit BOTH parties as OO is the market leader in the Linux space, there are still many loyal WP users but moving from WP to OO and viceversa was a PITA (OO 1.1.1 can finally import word docs exported by WP 7/8 Linux, the native WP support for OO is under development).
Re:Yes, you could... (Score:5, Interesting)
1) A Windows app. It doesn't use ANY special features of Linux/Unix
So some #ifdef statements are in order? A hybrid approach is entirely feasible - Mozilla on the Mac OS X uses a Carbon front-end and a Unix backend. WP is not constrained to use Win32 exclusively and could go off and do its own thing for drag & drop and other interactions if it wanted. I'm not saying that WP does do this, just that it could.
2) Still slower than GTK+ for many things because it's abstracting the Windows API to the X11 one and has to do many things in an inefficient manner to duplicate Windows behaviors.
But GTK, QT, wxWindows and VCL (openoffice) are all abstractions too. While Win32 isn't going to be an exact fit for the X environment, most of the time it's not going to make a significant difference to performance. The biggest problem is not the API, but how optimal Wine is in its implementation. You'd have to ask a Wine guru that, but it seems to work alright to me. The biggest issue with native apps using Wine is you might be on very dodgy legal ground if you need to compile MFC / ATL on Linux to do it.
Oh no, not again! (Score:2, Interesting)
Corel should add value to OpenOffice (Score:4, Interesting)
To good to be true (Score:3, Interesting)
My whish list would something like this:
It should be based on WP 12 (only for the editor tracking features)
QT-based to look good.
Aspell, so minor languages can get a decent spelling control.
CUPS for printing.
Well, one can dream.
Paradox Database (Score:2, Interesting)
If Corel does the Professional version with Paradox then they will have something, I think. I like Paradox because it is relational and even _I_ can create forms and queries and reports in it. I know it is really old hat, but as a path from Access? Why the heck not?
Paradox? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd buy the complete suite just to get that, on linux.
Corel will mess it up, it will fail (Score:4, Interesting)
Corel's track record with these "pilot" programs is very, very poor. They release lots of software for a release or so. It's buggy because it was pushed out of development to make the market window. They don't make any patches, because they're waiting to see if the market will snap up the software before devoting more resources. The market steers clear because the product is a buggy piece of junk. Corel drops the software, claiming the market wouldn't support it.
They do the same thing on Windows, but look at their Linux examples. WP7 was pretty solid. It was developed and supported by another company. WP8 was developed by that same company (SDLC, iirc), but transfered to Corel for development right before release. As a result, it had problems. It was supposed to ship with new printer drivers SDLC had developed to take better advantage of ghostscript and higher-res pictures. They weren't there. It had a huge, major bug where placing text over images could slow it down insanely. Don't even try making an image background! There were a few other minor bugs I don't recall.
If you spent a few hundred dollars on the server edition of WP for Linux, did you ever get things fixed? Of course not. If you bought the personal version, did they get fixed? Nope. Those bugs were fixed, but the only fixed version was released as part of Corel Linux OS Deluxe, and it wasn't even publicised as being fixed.
Still, WP8 was the best release they made for actually editing documents. Naturally, with WP9/WPO2000, they got rid of all that infrastructure and went with Wine.
What did that buy us? Still more, new bugs. Mostly because their version of Wine was buggy and under constant development. It would periodically crash and you'd have to erase your preferences dir, getting rid of any customization. They made a couple unofficial Wine updates in conjunction with their Corel Graphics release, but never released an official service pack. Which would have helped, since some of the bugs required code fixes in the WP code.
The best way to get WP and Draw running was to get the wine source from their CVS, and futz with the startup scripts to get it working. Except shortly after Draw was released, most of the Linux developers were canned.
Throughout this process, I was a C_Tech volunteer, trying to support these products on their newgroups. People kept coming up with the same bugs and I kept asking the product manager when we'd see a patch. He kept saying he'd like to, but upper management wouldn't approve the work unless they saw the software selling more. Eventually I resigned as a C_Tech when it became clear that there would never be a fix.
This is how Corel operates. They come up with some great idea, throw some money at it, but fail to follow through. I'd like to hope this will be different, but they screwed it up when the competition for a good word processor was much less than it is today, and I don't see them getting it right this time.
Ventura (Score:3, Interesting)
A few years ago he was given the task of figuring out how to make Quark do the same reports. With $10,000 worth of plug ins, plus some custom development on a plug in, Quark could do most, but not all of what Ventura was doing.
WP is still a viable product (Score:2, Interesting)
A new version of WP (Hopefully with improved font management) would be a great productivity-improver, and potentially allow us as a company more freedom to choose OS'es. Now if I can just convince the upper management that we need to get our key databases away from Access, I'll be in great shape.
Re:Lets hope Corel doesn't screw this up. (Score:4, Interesting)
If anything, Apple is losing some of its traditional fan base due to the switch to OS X. On the other hand, former desktop Linux users like myself have started buying Macs in droves because of OS X, but still left Linux on the servers . .
Just as the nature of Windows sucks due to its predatory father, unoriginal design, and poor security, Linux on the desktop sucks due to its unorganized nature and lack of homogeneity (and also lack of originality in some respects).
Now all of that doesn't much matter to me on a server: I set it up, lock it down, keep it updated, and forget about it. My desktop however, I'm staring at and navigating hours a day. It needs to be as simple as possible. Linux does not offer that, at least as well as OS X does, and due to its scattered nature, probably never will without some big name pushing for standardization.
What Linux does, and really any good alternative OS does is show people that there is a another, and oftentimes better way of getting work done. The first OS that showed me this fact was BeOS, which led me to Linux soon after, then finally to OS X. In other words, alternatives made me incredibly picky about what I used, since I perceived there to be a choice.
So though I'm advocating OS X . . . I really appreciate any diversity that crops up, because it forces people to start looking at alternatives. One less person running Windows means one less individual out there propagating Adolph Gates' plan for total information lock down and control.
You're looking at this all the wrong way. I don't want a second, third, or even fourth. I want abundant alternatives just like there were in the 80's. How many game manufactures during that time supported three or four platforms at once (Atari, Apple ][, c64, PC). The more competition that's allowed to exist in the market, the more creative things we'll see pop up; however, when one guy is allowed to dominate the entire field things become stagnant, predictable, and boring -- just like they have been since MS monopolized the industry.
Now if there's MORE than two or three alternatives, and each has a substantial user-base, no manufacture can consider it merely any OS niche. In fact, if the target market is always like this, programmers will try and make their code more portable from the very beginning, knowing it will likely need to run on multiple platforms.
Re:I for one look forward to this (Score:3, Interesting)
Note I do understand the (almost-irony) of asking why WP when OO, given your third paragraph. How does OO construct documents in the same way as Word, and how does it differ from WP?
Re:Lets hope Corel doesn't screw this up. (Score:3, Interesting)
I bought a copy of WPO2K for Linux, in large part to support their efforts in bringing a quality office suite to Linux. I was disappointed, to say the least; it loaded incredibly slowly, in a way that WP8 for Linux never did. It hung upon startup sometimes, even after installing the updated RPMs for a couple of packages. It was just hard to take it seriously, but I was hopeful they'd fix the issues and come out with a new version that was much better. Well, we all know what happened with that.
So anyway, I don't think I see a purpose in doing this. Opportunity lost; I'm not switching from OpenOffice, and I'm not at all convinced the corporate world is going to make a "Linux on the desktop" decision any differently for having an option of a Corel office suite over OpenOffice. Not that I wish for them to fail Corel has had a rough time over the last few years. I'm just not going to be paying for a proprietary package when something good (nay, excellent) is already available as OSS. Not because it's free, but because it works well.
- Leo
Re:Lets hope Corel doesn't screw this up. (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux is on much more than just a mere "tens of thousands" of desktops. Based on it's growth, it is also expected to pass the Mac OS in user base this year.
That's all wishful thinking. I'd believe you if I could walk into a CompUSA and see Linux represented in any way near the way Macs are represented. Linux does not exist as a desktop. I don't care how many buddies you get together to sing the praises of Gnome and KDE; Corel as a business needs money to survive. Unless you can say right now you're willing to drop $500 on a Linux office suite, you do not matter to them. Now try getting all those buddies together and see how many will drop the cash. Not enough to make it worthwhile from a business perspective I bet.
Yea, Corel could do alot of good at porting Wordperfect to Mac OS X, but it would be halfway there by porting it to run on Linux anyway.
That is a common misconception. A fair (let's be honest, Corel has no history of ever putting out a good Linux app) X11 app makes for a real crappy Mac application experience. It is a huge mistake to target a commercial desktop app at Linux. They should, as I have argued, target the Mac so they have something of reasonable commercial quality to compete, and then use that code base to move to Linux. Even now, they admit they're only "testing" the Linux platform. Odds are they'll put out another crap effort and disappear just like they did the last time they "embraced" the Linux market. Save your money.
Novell Should Have Kept It (Score:1, Interesting)
Imagine what Novell would have now. A powerful server (Linux/Netware), a great desktop (SUSE), and an office suite for it (WP).
That would have been a turnkey system.
Please Corel do this just for Quattro (Score:2, Interesting)