Corel Wordperfect Home

[aafuss1]

Corel has brought out their Wordperfect Home edition. It's a lot like iLife as it's a bundle of products and a PC rival to Appleworks-although AW does need a overhaul-as MS and Corel's home office suites (Works Suite and Wordperfect Home edition) have been upgraded this year and Apple's neglecting theirs in favour of iLife.

http://corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel2/Products/Home&pid=1047023967401

 

[bousozoku]

Why does this matter to Mac users? It's very, very unlikely that it will be made available to us.

 

[5300cs]

Man, and I had my hopes all up, too. Am I the only one who used to like Word Perfect? I used to use version 4, I think- it was on 5.25" floppies

 

[MisterMe]

Man, and I had my hopes all up, too. Am I the only one who used to like Word Perfect? I used to use version 4, I think- it was on 5.25" floppies

Ain't gonna happen. A few years ago, Corel was developing a Java-based version of WordPerfect that would have been cross-platform. Corel was also experiencing financial difficulties. Microsoft gave Corel a cash infusion. Corel stopped development of the Java-based app. In other words, Microsoft bought them off.

 

[weckart]

Why does this matter to Mac users? It's very, very unlikely that it will be made available to us.

Unlikely is way too hopeful. CorelDRAW 12 is a Windows only application. Interest in Mac died with CorelDRAW 11. This is a recognition that MS has won the Office wars. Corel is on its last legs and this package is a realisation that nobody is going to pay full price for a suite which few will need and fewer use to its full potential. Just like MS is not actively checking for eligibility for the ST edition of its Office package, it would rather people pay a reduced price than be tempted to pirate it.

 

[Le Big Mac]

Man, and I had my hopes all up, too. Am I the only one who used to like Word Perfect? I used to use version 4, I think- it was on 5.25" floppies

Wordperfect was once a great program, far better than Word. But Wordperfect failed to put out a windows version quickly enough, while MS developed a windows version of word (all for the PC--Word 4.0 for the Mac rocked years before either PC version was any*good). Eventually, Word took over (and not just for that reason--it's an MS product, need anything more be said?).

I doubt we'll see another version of WP for the Mac. MS dominates, and you'll end up with the MS suite and a bunch of cheaper, less full-featured competitors for the forseeable future.

 

[jeremy.king]

In other words, Microsoft bought them off.

Thats not always a bad thing. Remember 1997

For those who still want to use Wordperfect, theres a free version that runs in Classic. *Courtesy of Duffman*

http://acmfiles.csusb.edu/corel/wpmac.html

 

[MisterMe]

Thats not always a bad thing. Remember 1997

For those who still want to use Wordperfect, theres a free version that runs in Classic. *Courtesy of Duffman*

http://acmfiles.csusb.edu/corel/wpmac.html

If you are talking about the M$ $150 million purchase of Apple stock, that was a totally different thing. Apple had caught Bill's Boys is some grossly illegal activity. Rather than pursue a protracted legal fight which Microsoft would have lost, Jobs said to Gates: "Let's do business."

Apple did not kill any products as a result of the agreement. In addition to the purchase of Apple stock, M$ agreed to produce Office for the Mac for five years. By all accounts, the Apple/Microsoft agreement benefited both parties and their customers.

As for WordPerfect, I understand that a substantial fraction of its customers love the product. My friends who do legal documents tell me that Microsoft Word is not even in the same league as WordPerfect. I am a WordPerfect customer, but I am not a fan of the product. WordPerfect for the Mac beginning with WPMac 3.0 and WordPerfect for Windows/MS DOS beginning with WPWin 6.0 and WPDOS 6.0 are not fit for professional work in my field.

I was not a fan prior to their going so far off the beam. WordPerfect originated on the Data General minicomputer. It's clean screen paradigm worked well for professional stenographers on slow dumb terminals. The clean screen paradigm translated reasonably well to CLI-based personal computers. However, WordPerfect tried to hold true to its dumb terminal roots when it ported its wordprocessor to GUI-based OSes such as the Mac and Windows. The application faced a conflict in paradigms--a conflict that it lost.

As much as I hate Microsoft, I will choose Word over WordPerfect if I am forced to choose one or the other.

 

[jeremy.king]

Apple did not kill any products as a result of the agreement. In addition to the purchase of Apple stock, M$ agreed to produce Office for the Mac for five years. By all accounts, the Apple/Microsoft agreement benefited both parties and their customers.

No..no they didn't and never did I say that The comment was "bought off" and last I checked after the so-called MS "investment" - Apple killed their lawsuit... So one could say they were "bought off"

But thanks for the history lesson.

 

[bousozoku]

Ain't gonna happen. A few years ago, Corel was developing a Java-based version of WordPerfect that would have been cross-platform. Corel was also experiencing financial difficulties. Microsoft gave Corel a cash infusion. Corel stopped development of the Java-based app. In other words, Microsoft bought them off.

It wasn't just WordPerfect--it was the whole office suite. Besides that, it went away almost two years before MS invested any cash.

 

[aafuss1]

Why does this matter to Mac users? It's very, very unlikely that it will be made available to us.

Well, Appleworks is seriously falling behind PC applications like Wordpefect Office/MS Works or Open Office and really needs an upgrade-these three have received newer versions. Brittanica which is included with Wordperfect home has a Mac edition. And where's a new Appleworks-seems that Apple is not competing with MS and Corel, Sun StarOffice but choosing to focus on iLife instead of AW.

 

[bousozoku]

Well, Appleworks is seriously falling behind PC applications like Wordpefect Office/MS Works or Open Office and really needs an upgrade-these three have received newer versions. Brittanica which is included with Wordperfect home has a Mac edition. And where's a new Appleworks-seems that Apple is not competing with MS and Corel, Sun StarOffice but choosing to focus on iLife instead of AW.

You're right. Apple is choosing to put money into something that gives them an edge instead of something that was just necessary and still works. WordPerfect waited a very, very long time before entering the Mac market, took a long time to fix the bugs, then, ran away quickly and gave the developers their freedom. Those people later created another word processor, WAV. Corel has had time to revive WordPerfect but doesn't because they don't want to bring the whole suite to Mac OS X.

You can use a version of Open Office on Mac OS X and it doesn't cost you a thing. It's not native but it works better than anything else at the moment. There are other choices of word processors--the choices for other productivity applications is slimmer, though.

If there was money in competing with MS, Apple wouldn't hesitate to develop.

 

[5300cs]

Well, Appleworks is seriously falling behind PC applications like Wordpefect Office/MS Works or Open Office and really needs an upgrade-these three have received newer versions.

Let it not be said that I am one to spread rumors, but this is a rumors site

Someone mentioned here a few weeks ago that Apple is perhaps purposely not updating AppleWorks in order that it doesn't compete with Office.

 

[JFreak]

i would very much like to see wordperfect running natively on osx, but i doubt that will happen corel is a dying company that nobody sane supports anymore...

besides, word processing is nowadays totally different than when wordperfect was king. peole just don't realize it yet. let's see if adobe can make next version of indesign simple enough for (almost) anybody to use...