Paul M Foster wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 08:35:45AM -0400, Norbert Cartagena wrote:
>
>
>> http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/04/10/1522253
>>
>> Should IBM buy Corel? It certainly would be interesting (I'd be happy
>> with it).
>>
> The scenario would definitely be poetic justice. Some problems, though.
And just a couple of minor points I'd like to interject.
> Microsoft managed to netscape Netscape by bundling IE with Windows. IBM
> can't pull off a similar trick, because they don't have an OS (beside
> Linux) to do it with.
Thing is, though, with Word Perfect free, it would make its way into all the
major distributions. That would make it comparable to M$ Office being bundled
with systems.
> And if all your people are trained on Word, are you going to spend $100-$250
> per seat to upgrade and no training cost, or get Word Perfect for free
> and have to retrain everyone?
I remember from Corel's demo that WPO2k can be configured to mimic M$ Office's
menu structures, toolbars, and the like. So the required training might be minimal.
> Third, Corel's suite products aren't Linux-based, any of them. IBM could
> buy Corel and release them to the open source community, but would you
> want to hack at Windows-based code? Corel obviously thinks it's a
> daunting port, since they've hacked Wine instead of their own code.
According to Corel, their Linux ports have been Wine-based simply so they could
capitalize on their existing (Windows) code base and get products shipping as
quickly as possible. The estimate I recall for creating Linux-native products
would have been about two years, and Corel didn't want to wait that long to get
saleable products to market. But two years would have been with Corel's staff,
which was also working on maintaining and improving that same Windows code base.
If the Open Source community got control of the code, wouldn't it likely take
much less time to make the code portable. More eyes, and all that.
And one other thought occurs to me. While I know _I_ have no interest in
hacking Windows code, I know that there are some out there who do. Take for
example the Windows ports of Gnome, Gimp, and the like. Then consider what an
Open Source release of WPO2k would do to the playing field purely on the Windows
platform. Would vendors rather pay an OEM fee to bundle M$ Office, or pay
nothing for a (comparable, if not superior) office suite? Since Office is one
of Micro$oft's primary income bases, that would be hitting them right where it
hurts. And they'd be able to do little or nothing about it.
> But yeah, it would be poetic.
Abso-fraggin-lutely. And if IBM can do it at effectively no cost to them, the
question very nearly devolves to "Why not?"
Certainly food for thought. Anyone feel up to drafting an open letter to IBM?
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