Corel Buys WordPerfect

Corel Buys WordPerfect — Last week, Corel Inc. purchased Novell’s business applications division for $115 million in cash and stock, considerably less than the $1 billion Novell paid for WordPerfect and Quattro Pro less than two years ago (see TidBITS-302). Corel plans to integrate their flagship graphics software with WordPerfect applications in a challenge to Microsoft Office – a phrase that’s becoming a broken record in the industry. Corel CEO Michael Copland declined to comment on the future of the Mac version of WordPerfect, although he denied reports WordPerfect will abandon Mac development. However, reports to TidBITS indicate Novell’s WordPerfect Mac division was down to just four people by Macworld Expo in San Francisco, which makes one wonder how Corel – a company with little experience developing Mac software – plans to acquire the resources necessary to pursue Macintosh development. [GD]