Corel
Encyclopedia
Corel Corporation from the abbreviation ("Cowpland Research Laboratory") is a computer software
company headquartered in Ottawa
, Ontario
, that specializes in graphics processing, similar to Adobe Systems
. It is known for producing software titles such as CorelDRAW
, Paint Shop Pro and later acquired major competitors such as Ulead Systems and WordPerfect
.
in 1985, as a research laboratory . The company had great success early in the high-tech boom of the nineties
with the product CorelDraw
(being one of the Three Killer Apps of OS/2
), and became, for a time, the biggest software company in Canada. In 1996 it acquired Novell WordPerfect
and starting competing with the thought of "Pepsi
to Microsoft's Coke
" analogical business management, as Microsoft Word was the top-used word processing software at the time. Corel's job was made significantly more difficult due to Microsoft's strategy to push pre-loaded
copies of Word onto new computers.
In August 2000 Cowpland was accused of insider trading
and left. A new board of directors was then appointed and Derek Burney Jr., announced that the product line would be split into five brands. A few months later, it was to be three brands (DeepWhite, ProCreate and Corel). Finally it was decided that the company would go back to using "Corel" as the company's only brand and much of the later years consists of a series of acquisition and company restructuring.
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Computer software
Computer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
company headquartered in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, that specializes in graphics processing, similar to Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
. It is known for producing software titles such as CorelDRAW
CorelDRAW
CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada. It is also the name of Corel's Graphics Suite...
, Paint Shop Pro and later acquired major competitors such as Ulead Systems and WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
.
History
Corel was founded by Michael CowplandMichael Cowpland
Michael Cowpland is a British-born entrepreneur, businessman, and the founder and one-time president, chairman and CEO of Corel, a Canadian software company.-Early life:...
in 1985, as a research laboratory . The company had great success early in the high-tech boom of the nineties
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
with the product CorelDraw
CorelDRAW
CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada. It is also the name of Corel's Graphics Suite...
(being one of the Three Killer Apps of OS/2
OS/2
OS/2 is a computer operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively. The name stands for "Operating System/2," because it was introduced as part of the same generation change release as IBM's "Personal System/2 " line of second-generation personal...
), and became, for a time, the biggest software company in Canada. In 1996 it acquired Novell WordPerfect
WordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
and starting competing with the thought of "Pepsi
Pepsi
Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink that is produced and manufactured by PepsiCo...
to Microsoft's Coke
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
" analogical business management, as Microsoft Word was the top-used word processing software at the time. Corel's job was made significantly more difficult due to Microsoft's strategy to push pre-loaded
Pre-installed software
Pre-installed software is the software already installed and licensed on a computer bought from an original equipment manufacturer .-Bundled software:...
copies of Word onto new computers.
In August 2000 Cowpland was accused of insider trading
Insider trading
Insider trading is the trading of a corporation's stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the company...
and left. A new board of directors was then appointed and Derek Burney Jr., announced that the product line would be split into five brands. A few months later, it was to be three brands (DeepWhite, ProCreate and Corel). Finally it was decided that the company would go back to using "Corel" as the company's only brand and much of the later years consists of a series of acquisition and company restructuring.
Products
- Corel DesignerCorel DesignerCorel Designer is a vector-based graphics program. It was originally developed by Micrografx, which was bought by Corel in 2001.The last version developed by Micrografx was 9.0 in 2001. This program was later sold as Corel Designer 9. The current version is X5...
— Formerly MicrografxMicrografxMicrografx was a US-based software-house most notable for its graphics products. It was founded in 1982 by Paul and George Grayson and was the first company to release sophisticated graphics product for the Windows platform....
Designer, professional technical illustration software. - Corel Digital Studio — a set of four applications: PaintShop Photo Express (a light version of Paint Shop Pro), VideoStudio Express (video-editing software), DVD Factory (DVD burning and converting software), WinDVD (DVD player software).
- CorelDRAWCorelDRAWCorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation of Ottawa, Canada. It is also the name of Corel's Graphics Suite...
— A vector graphicsVector graphicsVector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer graphics...
editor. - Corel Graphics Suite — Combination of CorelDRAW, PhotoPaint, and Capture.
- Corel Home Office — A less expensive alternative to Microsoft Office.
- Corel KnockOut — Professional image masking plug-in.
- Corel Paint it! touch — Drawing and painting software created specifically for the Windows 7 touchscreenTouchscreenA touchscreen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus...
PCs. - Corel PainterCorel PainterCorel Painter is a raster-based digital art application created to simulate as accurately as possible the appearance and behavior of traditional media associated with drawing, painting, and printmaking. It is intended to be used in real-time by professional digital artists as a functional creative...
— a program that emulates natural media — paint, crayons, brushes etc. (formerly Fractal Painter). - Corel Photo Album — A sophisticated program for organizing digital photographs, inherited from Jasc Software.
- Corel Photo-PaintCorel PHOTO-PAINTCorel PHOTO-PAINT is a raster graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel since 1992. Corel currently markets the software for Windows operating systems, previously having marketed versions for Linux and Mac OS...
— A bitmap graphicsRaster graphicsIn computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
program comparable to Adobe PhotoshopAdobe PhotoshopAdobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems Incorporated.Adobe's 2003 "Creative Suite" rebranding led to Adobe Photoshop 8's renaming to Adobe Photoshop CS. Thus, Adobe Photoshop CS5 is the 12th major release of Adobe Photoshop...
, bundled with the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite. - Corel SnapFireCorel SnapFireCorel SnapFire is a digital photo editing and management program from Corel Corporation, released as a competitor to Google's Picasa software. It comes in a free and "Plus" version....
— A digital photo management suite, positioned to compete with Google's PicasaPicasaPicasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my...
offering. - Corel VenturaCorel VenturaVentura Publisher was the first popular desktop publishing package for IBM PC compatible computers running the GEM extension to the DOS operating system. The software was originally developed by Ventura Software, a small software company founded by John Meyer, Don Heiskel and Lee Jay Lorenzen, all...
— Desktop publishing software that had a large and loyal following for its DOSDOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
version when Corel acquired it in the early 1990s. It was briefly revived in 2002. - Corel LinuxCorel LinuxCorel Linux, also called Corel LinuxOS, was a Debian-based operating system made by Corel that was released in late 1999. Corel later discontinued the distribution, but did not remove the former Corel Open Source Development website until March 2002....
OS — One of the first GUI based distributions of Linux incorporating an automatic installation program in 1999.
Acquired Products
- Paint Shop Pro — In October 2004, Corel purchased Jasc SoftwareJasc SoftwareJasc Software, Inc. was an Eden Prairie, Minnesota based company founded by Robert Voit, the creator of Paint Shop Pro, a popular graphics editing program...
, developer of this budget-priced bitmap graphics editing program. - Quattro ProQuattro ProQuattro Pro is a spreadsheet program developed by Borland and now sold by Corel, most often as part of Corel's WordPerfect Office.Historically, Quattro Pro used keyboard commands similar to Lotus 1-2-3. It is commonly said to have been the first program to use tabbed sheets. Actually, Boeing Calc...
— A spreadsheet program acquired from BorlandBorlandBorland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
and bundled with WordPerfect Office. - VideoStudio — A digital video editing program originally developed by Ulead SystemsUlead SystemsUlead Systems is a Taiwanese computer software company headquartered in Neihu district in Taipei, Taiwan. It is a subsidiary of Corel.- History :Ulead was founded on August 5, 1989 by Lotus Chen, Lewis Liaw and Way-Zen Chen...
which remains a distribution of Ulead Systems. The software was rebranded Corel VideoStudio since Corel acquired Ulead and it became a working division of Corel. - WordPerfectWordPerfectWordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
— A word processing program acquired from Novell, and originally produced by Satellite Software International.
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- iGrafx FlowCharter — Process mapping, modeling and diagramming software.
- iGrafx Process — Process analysis, modeling and simulation software.
- iGrafx Process for Six Sigma — Process analysis and simulation software for Six Sigma professionals.
- iGrafx Process Central — Server software for centrally managing all process-related information.
- iGrafx Enterprise Central & iGrafx Enterprise Modeler — Enterprise modeling solution for aligning company processes, resources, and systems with corporate goals and strategies.
- iGrafx IDEF0 — Add-on environment for iGrafx product family for creating IDEF0 diagrams.
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- BryceBryce (software)Bryce is a 3D modeling, rendering and animation program specializing in fractal landscapes. The name is taken from Bryce Canyon—a rugged region with many of the same landscapes that were first simulated with the software.- History :...
- Software for creating 3d landscapes. Sold in 2004 to DAZ Productions. - Click and Create - A game development tool created by ClickteamClickteamClickteam is a software company, founded in 1993 by François Lionet, Yves Lamoureux and Francis Poulain, headquartered in Paris, France. Clickteam is perhaps best known for the creation of a script-free programming tool that allows users to create video games or other interactive software using a...
that was also sold as The Games Factory. Click and Create 2 was sold to IMSI who released it as Multimedia Fusion. - ParadoxParadox (database)Paradox is a relational database management system currently published by Corel Corporation. It was originally released for DOS by Ansa Software, and then by Borland after it bought the company...
— A relational database acquired from BorlandBorlandBorland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
and bundled with WordPerfect Office Professional Edition. - WinZipWinZipWinZip is a proprietary file archiver and compressor for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, developed by WinZip Computing...
— A file archiver and compressor, acquired in 2006 from Corel's purchase of WinZip Computing. - XMetaLXMetaLXMetaL, or XMetaL Author, is a software application used for creating and editing documents in XML and SGML. It has some features common to word processors, but is a native XML editor that can be configured to work with various standard and custom DTDs and XML Schema...
- An XMLXMLExtensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
editor acquired in the takeover of SoftQuad in 2001 and then sold to Blast RadiusBlast radiusA blast radius is the distance from the source that will be affected when an explosion occurs. A blast radius is often associated with, but not limited to, bombs, mines, explosive projectiles , and other weapons with an explosive charge....
in 2004.
List of Acquisitions Timeline
- In late 2001, Corel acquired MicrografxMicrografxMicrografx was a US-based software-house most notable for its graphics products. It was founded in 1982 by Paul and George Grayson and was the first company to release sophisticated graphics product for the Windows platform....
, a competitor for users seeking graphics software. - In August 2003, Corel was wholly acquired by Vector Capital, a private equity firm, for $1.05 a share (slightly more than the cash in the company). The company was voluntarily delisted from the NASDAQNASDAQThe NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
and Toronto stock exchangeToronto Stock ExchangeToronto Stock Exchange is the largest stock exchange in Canada, the third largest in North America and the seventh largest in the world by market capitalisation. Based in Canada's largest city, Toronto, it is owned by and operated as a subsidiary of the TMX Group for the trading of senior equities...
s. Some U.S. shareholders alleged the management benefited from the buyout personally while the buyout price was too low. A lawsuit was filed in the U.S. to stop the buyout and was unsuccessful. - In March 2005 Corel announced that the United States Justice Department purchased 50,000 licenses of WordPerfect (adding to the worldwide user base of 20 million) and that WordPerfect was adding 4 million new users per year thanks to bundling deals with Dell Computer. Corel contends that WordPerfect is the only viable alternative to Microsoft Office with sales 70 times Lotus'Lotus SoftwareLotus Software is a software company with headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts...
SmartSuiteLotus SmartSuiteSmartSuite is an office suite from Lotus Software. The company made versions of its office suite for IBM OS/2 and Microsoft Windows.-Status:SmartSuite is in maintenance mode, and supported with fixes and fixpacks on Windows 2000 and Windows XP...
and 300 times Sun'sSun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
StarOfficeStarOfficeStarOffice, known briefly as Oracle Open Office before its discontinuation in 2010, is a proprietary office suite. It was originally developed by StarDivision which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 1999...
(though it isn't compared against OpenOffice.orgOpenOffice.orgOpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo or OpenOffice, is an open-source application suite whose main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, and databases. OpenOffice is available for a number of different computer operating systems, is distributed as free software...
's market share, which, according to its website, has had more than 100 million downloads ). - On April 26, 2006, Corel completed its return to the public market with an initial public offeringInitial public offeringAn initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
on NASDAQ, the same day finalizing the acquisition of WinZipWinZipWinZip is a proprietary file archiver and compressor for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X, developed by WinZip Computing...
, a well-known archiving software title. - In 2006, Vector Capital owned approximately 72% of the company.
- On August 28, 2006, Corel announced that they will acquire multimedia software provider InterVideoInterVideoInterVideo was a software publisher specializing in multimedia related programs. InterVideo's products include video capturing, video editing, DVD authoring, CD/DVD recording, film distribution, and video playback. Its best known product is WinDVD. InterVideo markets its products to the retail...
for about $196 million. - On December 12, 2006, Corel announced that the acquisition of InterVideoInterVideoInterVideo was a software publisher specializing in multimedia related programs. InterVideo's products include video capturing, video editing, DVD authoring, CD/DVD recording, film distribution, and video playback. Its best known product is WinDVD. InterVideo markets its products to the retail...
and Ulead had been completed. - In May 2008, CEO David Dobson announced that he was leaving the company to take a senior strategy role at Pitney BowesPitney BowesPitney Bowes Inc. is a Stamford, Connecticut-based manufacturer of software and hardware and a provider of services related to documents, packaging, mailing, and shipping, collectively referred to as mailstream. The company has approximately 36,000 employees worldwide. It is one of 87 existing...
. Dobson was replaced on May 8 by former Symantec executive Kris Hagerman. - In November 2009, it was announced that Vector Capital will be purchasing the remaining shares of common stock in Corel Corporation. Upon completion, Corel will once again be privately owned.
- On January 29, 2010, the shareholders of Corel approved its previously announced stock consolidation. The consolidation represented the second and final step in the acquisition of Corel by Corel Holdings, L.P., a limited partnership controlled by an affiliate of Vector Capital. Following approval of the Consolidation, Corel filed articles of amendment to effect the consolidation with the result that Corel is now wholly owned by Corel Holdings.
Corel World Design Contest
The annual Corel World Design Contest ran from 1990 through 1998 and was considered to be one of the most prestigious graphic design contests, worldwide. The competition intended to recognize and encourage an international community of graphic artists from over 50,000,000 registered Corel users. Two finalists for each of the eight categories were awarded a trip to Ottawa, Canada to participate in the Corel World Design Contest gala and awards ceremony. The finalists from each of the eight categories received an issue of the "Corel Crystal Award". The collection of artworks were later released in a catalogue with bundled CD, under the name of "Corel Artshow".See also
- Bridgeman Art Library Ltd. v. Corel Corporation
- InterVideoInterVideoInterVideo was a software publisher specializing in multimedia related programs. InterVideo's products include video capturing, video editing, DVD authoring, CD/DVD recording, film distribution, and video playback. Its best known product is WinDVD. InterVideo markets its products to the retail...
- Ulead SystemsUlead SystemsUlead Systems is a Taiwanese computer software company headquartered in Neihu district in Taipei, Taiwan. It is a subsidiary of Corel.- History :Ulead was founded on August 5, 1989 by Lotus Chen, Lewis Liaw and Way-Zen Chen...