RSSCorel Takes on Microsoft Outlook
By Ed Oswald | Published July 13, 2005, 2:03 PM
Corel has announced it would offer its new e-mail client as a standalone product in a bid to offer a viable alternative to Outlook. The client was part of the WordPerfect Office suite, but Corel decided to offer WordPerfect Mail on its own and competitively price to win converts from Microsoft Office.
"The addition of WordPerfect Mail to the Corel product family supports WordPerfect Office's position as the only truly viable alternative to Microsoft Office," said Richard Carriere, General Manager for Office Productivity at Corel. "With the addition of a world-class email client, Corel is advancing its commitment to consumers and small businesses."
The program offers many of the same features as Outlook, including calendar and search functions. However, WordPerfect Mail's search functions are what sets the client apart from its competitors, Corel says.
Using technology from the now defunct e-mail client Bloomba, Corel claims that searches taking minutes in Eudora or Outlook using the standard search functions will only take seconds in WordPerfect Mail.
Bloomba was widely praised for its search integration. While the client looked much like Outlook, there was no system of hierarchical folders, just a search bar below the standard mail functions. A user would access messages using a search term.
Also included with WordPerfect Mail is spam protection based on technology from SA Proxy Pro. The technology will adapt to what a user considers spam by using both preset definitions, as well as input from the user. RSS reading support is also built into Corel's e-mail client.
WordPerfect Mail is available immediately and Corel will offer the product for $69 USD, or $29 USD on its Web site if purchased with another Corel product.
Boy, there sure ain't nuttin' like an open mind these days!
I always thought WordPerfect was a very decent product, and I give Corel credit for bringing out an application to use as an alternative to Outlook. (which does sell for $100.00+ as a stand alone application)
As far as Exchange support, most Corporate systems I know of do not prompt a "bring your own email client" policy! If Outlook and Exchange are used at work, so be it. (Same for Lotus Notes & Domino)
Some perspective would be nice in these posts instead of just everyone barking like yet another attack dog.
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Make it connect to Exchange and Domino (and support mail, calendar, tasks, etc..) and you may get a winner.
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That's exactly correct. You can support all the protocols in the world, but it won't gain large acceptance unless it can connect to MS Exchange Server.
Note that Evolution for Linux can connect to Exchange, but I'm not aware of anything Windows-based other than Outlook that will connect to Exchange.
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All you have to do is enable IMAP in Exchange. It was enabled by default in 5.0 and 5.5 but got disabled by default in 2000/2003. Unlike POP3, IMAP is well-suited as a protocol for Exchange clients because it can access folders (including Public Folders), and Exchange has built-in (but little-known) features which specifically help IMAP clients do things like accept Outlook meeting requests. It takes an above-average understanding of both IMAP clients and Exchange, but the result is a bandwidth-friendly, firewall-friendly, and platform-neutral client for Exchange.
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A lot of people forget... there was a time when Wordperfect was the most widely used Word processor out there - but for better or worse days of DOS are long gone.
In many ways Corel seems to suffer from the same fate that Netscape did. A company has some fairly popular software. Microsoft comes along, floods the market with their software and introduce a few different features and such, and leaves the alternatives in the dust. But the others still hang around in the background for years to come.
There are features Wordperfect had over Word for the longest time. Word's 'reveal codes' thing didn't really help very much for the longest time (looks like they finally updated it in 2003). Can't tell you how many times I used Word and had issues with spacing, fonts and such not starting and stopping where I want, and simply deleting or trying to force it to do what I want affects the adjacent text (like left and right allignment on the same line).
Wordperfects version of that feature (even back with WP 5.1 for DOS I believe) opens up a section at the bottom of the screen that reminds me of HTML code. You can easilly see every bit of formatting, and where it starts and stops. Line spacing, allignments, tab spacing, all the font related stuff, everything. It was so much more useful than Words thing for years that was 80% those stupid end paragraph symbols.
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Please, Corel had nothing to do with WordPerfect DOS 20 years ago. WordPerfect stumbled into the Windows GUI and has never recovered since. And isn't it funny that the only people who ever have trouble with Microsoft Word are WordPerfect users? Word 2003 does have reveal codes, and maybe if you didn't screw up your documents so much, you wouldn't need it all the time in WordPerfect.
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Love the insults - assume I'm a moron because I don't agree with you. I don't have problems using MS Office, I just wish some of the programs had improved features in some areas. Kind of hard not to use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. like crazy when getting a Mechanical Engineering degree at the University of Illinois last year.
And okay I guess you were right, there is no reveal codes in Word anymore. Its now called reveal formatting (shift + F1).
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Despite the blather on this thread the product works well and is isolatedfrom your other applications (unlike Outlook)
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Based on everything else Corel have ever released, it's pretty much certain, compared to Outlook, it's going to be buggy, lacking features, horrible GUI...
I wonder how Corel actually survive by making such horrible software??
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Maybe the software isn't so horrible. Their Linux ports were pretty terrible though.
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Well if it was compatible with my Palm, and had proper IMAP support (unlike Outlook), it'd be worth a look. Anyone know if these things are supported?
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"However, WordPerfect Mail's search functions are what sets the client apart from its competitors, Corel says.
Using technology from the now defunct e-mail client Bloomba, Corel claims that searches taking minutes in Eudora or Outlook using the standard search functions will only take seconds in WordPerfect Mail."
Yes, the standard search in Outlook is slow, but, with the MSN Lookout addon, it's just as fast as Bloomba.
Corel, the only thing you have left of decent quality are your graphics products. You'd have a much better shot at beating your competitors with them.
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Corel made one good product in its history — CorelDRAW. It successfully killed WordPerfect (thank goodness) by bloating it fatter than Karl Rove's head, and this email app is their last desperate, flailing attempt to salvage WordPerfect Office. Face it Corel, you, WordPerfect, and your users were crushed by Open Source alternatives which are far better, and Microsoft doesn't even know you exist any more (which is why they don't make conversion formats to Corel products). Just die and go away.
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We know Microsoft will cruch Corel into tooth picks.
Lets focus on the battle with Microsoft vs. Opensource products!
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Do they have a prayer competing against MonsterSoft? I doubt it.
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Are they planning on suing microsoft later on when they can't generate any sale? I agree that this looks a lot like lotus notes and I hate lotus notes. I don't know why they couldn't try and copy outlook at least. Don't copy a lesser program.
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Looks old and crappy. Looks like they took pieces of Lotus CCMail back from 1997.
Hahahahaha.
Plus, who would pay $70 for just an email client? Can it connect to an Exchange server? I bet not.
Download Mozilla Thunderbird for free and install the SunBird extension and there is your Calendar.
People these days. Corel is a "has been".
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looks cool but is way too expensive...make it 30 bucks, linux compatibility and 20 bucks if purchased with another product and then im a buyer.
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I don't see the word Exchange in the article. Sorry Corel.
TowerDave
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Corel has always been slower and just not as good . This is my opinion, and Corel Use to give me a free copys of all of their software trying to get me to sell if for them, but I just couldn't do it.
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That's why the US government used it and required it for so many years right?
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When has the US GOV ever done anything right?
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They do things right all the time, you just don't notice when things go as planned.
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"Corel Takes on Microsoft Outlook", good luck.
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