Corel, a company that has had its fair share of "beleaguered"
articles, has been hauled from the brink by its most hated enemy,
Microsoft.
Embrace and extend, with an emphasis on embrace.
Let's look at what happened when Microsoft last pulled this.
Microsoft rode
to the rescue of Apple in 1997, offering a big chunk of cash in
exchange for Internet Explorer on the desktop and Apple dropping
several unnamed lawsuits. Kiss and make up. You said "uncle," now do
what I say.
Currently, Apple remains on good terms with Microsoft. Microsoft,
without a doubt, turns out pretty good products. IE is not the worst
browser on the market, and Office makes sure that no one in the
business world has to know that you (horror of horrors) use a
Mac.
So now that one enemy is down and happily bowing before the
Microsoft altar, what's the next step? Go out and get another to cry
"uncle."
Apple was definitely a worthy opponent; it surely made Bill Gates
happy when he had to help out. If you look at the Corel deal, though,
Gates gets much more than a large bite out of a small pie.
Currently, Corel is one of the corporate champions of Linux.
Porting apps like mad and supporting
Linux upstarts like Rebel.com.
Corel will undoubtedly be in charge of placing
.NET onto the Linux platform.
Nice and neat, you see? No need for Microsoft to get messy with
open-source, just hire (or bribe) a stooge to take the fall for you.
Microsoft gets into the Linux action without putting its family
jewels on the line. All part of the master plan.
Fast forward to now.
What is Apple's relationship with Microsoft?
Muted support would be the best way of putting it. No one
complains too much about the heavy handedness of Microsoft. The
hardest hitting anti-Microsoft diatribe was Avie
Tevanian's testimony against Microsoft. Since then, not a peep.
Support for the new versions of Explorer and, particularly, Office
abound, however (as indicated in this
article by Applelinks).
So, on the long road to world domination, Corel will likely be
praising Microsoft and evangelizing the .NET strategy in two of three
years time. Corel's battle cry to take the office suite battle to
Microsoft will be but a hollow memory as everyone lines up to get
their hands on Microsoft certified "open source" software.
Criticism of Microsoft, from within the ranks and the faithful
followers, will be destroyed, and each new product from the Microsoft
campus will be greeted with shouts of joy.
Of course, the icing on the cake is Corel porting
all of its existing Mac apps over to .NET as well. Three
operating systems all wrapped up and delivered to Bill.
Stephen Van
Esch is the founder and president of
the
E-learning Foundry, an online training
resource for Mac users. Steve loves the Mac and is doubly bilingual,
since he's also fluent in Windows and French.
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