By PAUL WALKE
Corel Corp. announced a new product strategy Tuesday for its recently acquired products, WordPerfect and PerfectOffice.
WordPerfect will no longer be sold as an individual word processing program, Corel President Mike Copeland said.
To compete directly with Microsoft Office, Corel has developed CorelOffice Suite, which includes WordPerfect 6.1, Quattro Pro, NetScape 2.0, Envoy, Sidekick, Presentations and a clip art library of 10,000 images.
It was also announced during a phone conference that PerfectOffice will be renamed “CorelOffice Professional” and will include the traditional CorelOffice Suite package plus GroupWise, Paradox and additional clip art and graphics.
The upgrade and full CorelOffice Suite will be sold at about half of what Microsoft Office currently sells for. Because of the low price, Corel expects its market share to increase from seven to 30 percent this year. The company plans to begin delivering the new products in May.
Corel is also increasing customer service for existing WordPerfect customers and new customers. The company provides free unlimited customer service, instead of a six-month service plan for a fee. In addition, new customers will receive a compact disc each quarter, which will update and inform them of new developments.
WordPerfect and PerfectOffice were acquired by Corel in January from Novell Inc. Corel will lease buildings at Novell’s Orem facility for at least three years.
Copeland said the WordPerfect teams in Orem and Ottawa, Canada, are already integrated. He also said if there are any layoffs, they will be minimal in Utah.
CorelOffice Suite and CorelOffice Professional will be manufactured at Corel’s facilities in Ireland.
