Corel getting bought,Xara still lives

[handrawn]

I like Corel Painter - no complaints, its one of a kind, at the level its at

PSP stopped at ver 9 for me

Marketing. That is the answer, that is why some products make it and others don`t.
Like Betamax and Video2000 were superior systems for storing video, VHS won because they did better marketing. And the more people got a VHS, the more it became the standard.

plus the [film] industry were all for the lossy VHS - betamax made copies that were too good for comfort, too easy to rip and keep on ripping

with vhs you could not go on copying vhs copies and get an acceptable result ....

[RedWombat]

Corel is really not getting bought out. They were several years ago by Vector. Corel was a public company before Vector. When Vector bought them out, they took them private. Vector then re-issued Corel as a public company again. All they are doing now is taking them private again. And for a good price I might say.

What it really boils down to is a money game. Vector made a ton a cash by taking Corel public again. When the economy turned, Corel's price dropped and they're able to gobble it up cheap.

This isn't about better products, it's about making money. And that's Corel's big problem. They haven't focused on creating great products with great customer service. Which would have really grown their user base with real long term loyalty. They've focused on acquisitions and selling off.

I've been a Corel user since DRAW 2. I've watched dozens of products come and go from the Corel line up. I believe they use acquisitions to bump their stock price up. You know, buy something, get people excited, yea . . . let's make money. Trying to increase their DRAW user base by buying it from another product. Then the acquired products dies a slow death because Corel really wasn't interested in improving their products.

I still have the latest version of DRAW, but I rarely use it anymore. It's antiquated and slow.

I used to buy into the excitement of another product being folded into the DRAW suite, but that got old. In with the new, out with the old. That got really really old for me. I just lost interest.

Hence, Corel's problem. I think too many professionals like myself lost interest.

This won't help their bottom line. They need something that blows people away. Something that creates such a buzz, that Adobe can't see straight.

WordPerfect was the king of the hill many years ago. It still has a good brand name. Perhaps Corel should consider making it open source.

Hey, maybe they'll buy Magix next . . . Just kidding!

BTW, sorry for such a long reply . . . I just couldn't resist.

[covoxer]

Hey, maybe they'll buy Magix next . . .

Nah... how fun in that? What they'll do next is buying out Adobe. And then Microsoft. Now that will be fun.

[hrhpaul]

In the early 1990's Xara was a fantastic stand alone product... It re emerged as CorelXara which I presumed at the time was a take over of some sort (although I've more recently found out that it was a marketing partnership). I can't workout what Corels reason for this is if they didn't get something back from the deal so i remain suspicious. Bryce was part of the package that they bought from Kai, the makers of Kai's power tool, Goo and many more. Corel also took over a company called Gould Disk who were the authors of 'Professional Draw'.. A fantastic piece of software that they instantly killed off. CorelDraw's major advantage was that the software could open virtually any file... Most of the good programmers moved to Macromedia. They developed programs such as 'Freehand', 'Xres' and 'M'tropolis'. Corel really had no chance at this point and as Macromadia have been swallowed up by Adobe, their days are numbered...

[covoxer]

In the early 1990's Xara was a fantastic stand alone product...

Not quite early 90's. Xara Studio was released in 1994 and in 1995 it was already a Corel Xara. Few were distributed before Corel.

I can't workout what Corels reason for this is if they didn't get something back from the deal so i remain suspicious.

Quite a few reasons I can imagine:
1. They had exclusive rights for distribution and marketing so they actually controlled commercial success of this product.
2. As a result they got rid of the serious competitor to their DRAW. Xara Studio was ages ahead of the then current DRAW 5. Corel marketed Xara as a web oriented, truncated version of DRAW. Most Corel users of the time didn't even tried out Xara believing that it's just a simplified version of DRAW for newbies and web designers.
3. Obviously they got the share from sales so even if Corel Xara took a part of DRAW's market, Corel wouldn't suffer.

Ultimate goal was as usually - destroy competition. Same story as with Jasc for example. During 5 years under Corel distribution Xara was thrown back much. And first free release as XaraX was very tough step to survive.

Added: you can read Xara history here: http://site.xara.com/history.asp

[HayTay]

you can read Xara history here: http://site.xara.com/history.asp

Some additional Xara, Ltd. and Xara Xtreme history is shown here on digitalred.com: Xara Xtreme History. The write up is interspersed with prior 'splash screens' for Xara Xtreme and its predecessors. Unfortunately the article is only current up to XXP v3.2.

A blast from the past,
Harry

[InfoCentral]

Marketing. That is the answer, that is why some products make it and others don`t.
Like Betamax and Video2000 were superior systems for storing video, VHS won because they did better marketing. And the more people got a VHS, the more it became the standard.

Good point. I think that company involvement and interest in their product also is very important for future success. If you take a look at Luxology for example they are active in the forums and the president tries to have a weekly podcast showcasing what is going on with their product. Could be training material the users are selling or highlights of what is going on the forums. Plug-ins or training that they are producing/selling. Developments, shows past/upcoming, etc.. And training can not be undervalued. All major players produce their own training on a continues bases (Microsoft, Adobe, Luxology, Autodesk). Its probably a given that if you plan on staying around you need to get busy with training material for your users.

[covoxer]

Thanks for the link Harry. It was interesting to read.