RSSCorel Acquires InterVideo for $196M
By Nate Mook | Published August 28, 2006, 12:02 PM
Corel on Monday announced an agreement to acquire multimedia software publisher InterVideo, most known for its WinDVD lineup, in an all-cash deal valued at $196 million. The move expands Corel's portfolio into video editing and DVD creation.
With its office products largely reaching their peak amid increasing competition from OpenOffice.org, Corel has endeavored to shift its software business into multimedia. The company acquired JASC Software and its popular Paint Shop Pro offering in 2004 and is readying a new imaging platform code-named "Alta."
Through the acquisition, Corel gains the WinDVD player and WinDVD Creator, which both recently added support for HD DVD and Blu-ray. In addition, thanks to InterVideo's merger with Ulead in July, Corel will also add to its product lineup Ulead Photo Impact, UleadVideoStudio and Ulead DVD Movie Factory.
"With outstanding products, talented employees and deep relationships with eight of the world's top ten PC manufacturers, InterVideo represents a significant opportunity for Corel to deliver enhanced value to our shareholders," remarked Corel CEO David Dobson. "This acquisition will also benefit customers and partners as we expand our ability to provide flexible, bundled solutions that meet the needs of today's digital media consumers."
InterVideo's partnerships with computer makers is a key factor in the deal says Jupiter Research senior analyst Joe Wilcox.
"InterVideo's DVD playback software is broadly bundled with new PCs. The company also has OEM deals for some of its other video software. If the folks at Corel are smart, they'll leverage some of these relationships for extending the OEM reach of other products, like WordPerfect, Painter, the forthcoming Alta or WinZip (yeah, the company bought the compression software in May)," explained Wilcox.
Corel is now competing directly with Sonic Solutions, which Wilcox notes has a both a strong retail and OEM presence. The acquisition is expected close in the fourth quarter of this year.
R.I.P. InterVideo.
Everything Corel touches immediately devolves into a morass of reprehensible QA resulting in bugs and bloat. The company should have been allowed to die a long time ago but government contracts obtained by whining and using its status as a Canadian company to weasel its way into Canadian government contracts ("the government must be seen to be fair") as well as outside investors (no, not MS) propped it up.
I'm Canadian and I'm ashamed to call this company one of ours. It's method of doing business in terms of "software development" (I use the term extremely loosely) violates every precept of the Canadian work ethic that makes our products worthwhile on the international market.
I guarantee you this:
The current version of WinDVD is the LAST version that will work properly just as Paint Shop Pro 9.0 was the last version worth buying.
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|Oh, this is tragic. I have to think some demon has targeted the apps I've preferred and invested my time and data in for destruction. First it was Paradox. Dead. Paint Shop Pro. Dead.. now WinDVD.
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|Corel just burned $196 million for nothing. WinDVD is a fine product (Intervideo's other apps are grossly overpriced non-players), but is completely unnecessary. With apps like GOM Player and even Media Player Classic, WinDVD is a gorgeous dinosaur that tosses about 2500 entries in your Registry. Corel — or should I say Vector Capital — will only make it unbearably worse.
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|Corel just got ripped off:D HA....HA....
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|I just want to know where Corel got that kind of cash.
They had to give up "The Corel Center" in Ottawa, which is now called "The Scotiabank Center".
D'OH!
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|WinDVD 7 latest build is an excellent product. Now Corel will start making it a bloated software, Intervideo was starting already, unfortunately.
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|Actually Intervideo was doing a pretty good job of turning WinDVD into crap on their own. Now they get some extra help coutesy of Corel.
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|You're absolutely right, Skyfrog: everything Corel touches does turn to crap. They bought Painter from Metacreations several years ago and totally sucked the life out of it. Such a shame because Painter can do things that no other graphics program on the market can do, yet Corel is leaving it to rot without any meaningful development over the past 6 years. Same goes for Poser and Bryce, two more unique applications with very active and talented userbases.
What a waste.
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|So long WinDVD, everything Corel touches turns to crap. WordPerfect, Corel Linux, etc. I don't care, I use PowerDVD anyway.
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