RSSDOJ Drops Microsoft Office for Corel
By David Worthington | Published March 7, 2005, 7:44 PM
Corel has won a 50,000 seat contract with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to license its WordPerfect Office 12 suite. Corel is crediting the "flexible" terms of its enterprise licensing program and the strength of its feature set as the primary reasons for overcoming objections and closing the sale.
WordPerfect 12 is billed as a feature-rich and value-priced alternative to Microsoft Office, but can coexist with the market leader, having built-in compatibility modes to support Microsoft's document formats.
The WordPerfect Office suite tackles word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and contact management. Corel's new Workspace Manager enables users to adjust the user interface to their own custom designs or clone the familiar layout of Microsoft toolbar and menu items. Users can also choose to work within pre-designed Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect 5.1 Classic backgrounds.
Last April, WordPerfect received an across the board update and compatibility enhancements to work better with Microsoft Office and received added support for an assortment of widely used file formats including PDF, HTML and XML. Corel has included Microsoft Office file support along with new compatibility toolbars that assist users to work with Microsoft Office documents.
Corel's enterprise grade licensing grants individual users nonconcurrent home and laptop privileges, and enterprise customers also receive customized support solutions from Corel. Support services cover product maintenance and customer training, as well as expertise for third party technology integration and customized XML solutions.
"The DOJ chose WordPerfect Office 12 because, quite simply, our users require it to do their job. In the courts, or among attorneys, it's the tool of choice for the legal arena," said Mary Aileen O'Donovan, Program Manager for the Justice Management Division at the U.S. Department of Justice.
With Microsoft holding roughly 90 percent market share, many analysts say that WordPerfect's primary competition is other alternative productivity suites including Sun's Star Office and the OpenOffice.org open source software package.
To encourage broad adoption as a Microsoft Office alternative, Corel has relaxed licensing requirements and cut prices for teachers and students with a special WordPerfect Office 12 edition. Non-profit organizations also qualify to purchase the low-price SKU.
I work on a daily basis with Corel WordPerfect and have been doing so since 1998 when I was hired at the company I work for now. It's amazing to see, that even since version 8 back then, the product was relatively very crappy compare to MS-Office and again today, we use version 11, it is still a real piece of junk. So, before you go thinking "what the heck this guy is bashing Corel for! He don't know dink" well, remember, I use this tool Monday to Friday, been doing this for 7 years!! Plus now, we use both Corel WP 11 and Word 2003 in our environment and, trust me; Word 2003 is way way ahead of the game! So much more stable, intuitive functionalities that works! Corel should focus on graphic software from now on…
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|Big-government republicans blew a ton of money on this deal. I'd love to see them go with OpenOffice, but it's not advanced enough to handle their needs. Bush's DOJ dropped the case against Microsoft's monopolistic practices, and don't be surprised if they embrace Word 2006 next year.
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|*Takes Troll Pill*
Notepad makes WordPerfect look like a first-time "Hello World!" app! Wo0T!
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|I can't believe that they went with Corel instead of OpenOffice or even Star Office. Isn't OpenOffice more compatible with MS Office than Corel??
Alister
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|I agree... all government should just set the tone for the country & go all open source & non- or low-ad: OpenOffice, browser / mail clients, Google, the various security apps, as well the multimedia 'Alternatives', tweak apps, etc., etc. --- not only save money, but simultaneously put a dent to malware(however temporary), help educate novice/mainstream users, etc.
They could just come to BetaNews for all their needed software recommendations/reviews.....
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|As an IT professional of some 15 years, I have rarely heard such ill-considered train of "thought".
The purpose of an organization is to get work done. To that end, they should choose the best tool to accomplish that mission - period.
That choice should not be encumbered by religious nonsense or the championing of a particular "cause". On that road lies pure folly and wasted time, money and productivity.
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|The article is wrong when it states that the DOJ has *dropped* MS Office. The DOJ was already using WordPerfect, and still uses MS Office as well. All the DOJ is doing is upgrading its WordPerfect licenses to version 12.
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|...in that now MS may actually be competing with another company in their office products. I remember when Office 97 was out--Corel and even Lotus weren't too far behind--MS strived for perfection. Now the interface is too much--I miss the standard look of Office 97. Not that my opinion counts for much. Yeah I'm sure others miss the Word 97 look but unless MS is completely stupid (they aren't, in case you haven't noticed they have more money than you!), they wouldn't stick with further adding enhancements and complicating the interface unless SOMEONE wanted it that way. If Corel sticks with the low prices for their suite, maybe, just maybe MS might consider lowering the price of Office and I might actually buy it. I bought MS Office 97 PROFFESIONAL for only $100, look at the !@#$%^& they're charging now! I want Access, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for at most $200, is this a hardship for MS? --now I'm just rambling...
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|Although I do prefer MS Office to Corel's offering... it's more for the visual asthetic than anything else.
MS Office just SEEMS more polished... although I doubt it really is.
That being said - the more $$$ Corel makes, the better they can make Draw (best illustration program on the market) and Photopaint (distant second to PhotoShop - mostly, again, a polish issue) :)
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|Corel is now so bad at developing they've taken to buying existing s/w companies to get decent product. Photopaint is that bad they've bought JASC so that they can get their mitts on PaintShopPro....and all of JASC's customers are scared they'll make a mess of this great product!
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|I have to laugh at this comment. I agree, it is good for Corel as well as the software community in general however this consumer seems to have been left in the dark about a LOT of thinmgs... Implying Corel buys other companies products for incorporation into their own offerings has been a long standing Microsoft tradition (remember drivespoace and doublespace? that was stacker, what about all the recent news about all the av and security software ms bought out for incorporation in its own platforms and offerings? what about Java? ms getting the sourse like everyone else but unlike everyone else, violating the terms of use and licensing in that they altered the core of Sun's java creating a newer and better (allegedly) MsJava (which incidentally isnt compatible with 100% pure java applications)... I can go on for pages and pages. so what if Corel bought a few applications recently for incorporation in their offering? seems they are just following the lead of Microshaft and other industry software leaders.
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|Having used both products on a day-to-day basis for quite some time, I can tell you that the MS product is decidedly easier to use, more refined and considerably more bug free than the Corel product. Corel is more obsessed about getting a product out the door (a mindset they have held for at least five years now) than getting it right the first time.
For the record I'm Canadian and I'm all for Canadian companies - when they do it right.
If I couldn't use MS Office, I'd rather have OpenOffice - THAT is a quality product, albeit not one that I'd recommend as a mainstay for a large company or government department in its current incarnation.
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|When I learned that Corel had bought JASC, I made up my mind:
Paint Shop Pro 9 is the last iteration of that product that I will ever buy because it is the last decent version of the product that will ever exist.
'nuff said.
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|just wanted to remind everyone that while I'd love to see someone topple Microsoft, Corel won't be doing it. Lawyers have to format documents in a very perfect format, and only the "Reveal Codes" function of WordPerfect can do that (like look at raw HTML vs. WYSIWYG HTML). I work at a law school, and I get to watch teacher spend semesters forcing student to format documents in this exacting format, with evil stories of judges throwing out legal documents if they are such-and-such inches from the left, with such-and-such spacing and kerning.
Anyways... props to Corel for staying true to their lawyer base. Now if I can only get some of the professors to stop using DOS and WordPerfect 5.1 (with the F1-F12 cheat sheet at the top of their keyboard).
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|Silly law student. I've been working in IT for Law Firms for 11 years, and WP Dos/5.1 was the pinnacle of what worked best for law firms. Secretaries and attorneys could whip out documents in a fraction of the time it takes them now with WP or Office. *EVERYONE* complains about Word's flaky driver support, it's lacluster Table support, it's feature bloat that has nothing to do with a legal environment.
On a side note, why didn't the Justice Department just go with Openoffice and save us taxpayers a hell of a lot of money?
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|I'm surprised that no one has brought up the point that Corel is a Canadian company. For those that are geographically or politically challenged, Canada is another country, and not a part of the United States.
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|Rubbish.
Most of the law firms in this city (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) have long since switched to Word, going through the pain of document and macro conversion for the rewards of greater ease of use, more versatility and considerably greater stability.
That completely obviates your claim.
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|OMG, are people getting dumber everyday?
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|Yes, apparently so, look at all the people worshipping every "new" thing to come out of Redmond, no matter how bad it is :)
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|At least the products work that they make there in Redmond, WA
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|ummm really? maybe work if you call how microsoft's poor product releases always crash, then ya, thats working alright.
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|Good. I'm tired of MS and Office. It's not better, it's just marketed better.
Long Live Underdogs :)
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|I remember when I could have Wordperfect on a single diskette (not sure if it was low density or not). 4.2 and 5 were my favorite versions. Then incompatibility kept cropping up. MS Word could read WP docs, but not always the other way around (remember "Conversion Pro"?). Our users were split 50/50. I think WP's problem reading Word was the main reason we standardized on Word. Then I recall the problems of newer Word docs not being read by older Word progs. But I digress. WP was a great product, they sold a couple of times with Corel finally owning the suite. I think if I had to switch now (which I don't) I would go with Open Office. Still, I have good memories of WP. I think there's a lesson to be learned by what happened to WP, but I'm not quite sure what it is. Marketing? Improving? Being incompatable with everyone else? Dunno.
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|The lesson to be learned from WP is to give people what they want rather than what you think they ought to have. WP vastly underestimated the "frills" of a WYSIWYG UI. Only power users had the patience to memorize the cryptic key combinations. Though, once you get the hang of it, it's a lot faster than reaching for the mouse. Oh, well.
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