Corel
Sold To Vector Capital Group
And
speaking of Office Suites, the Corel Corporation, the Ottawa, Canada
owner of WordPerfect, has now been sold to Vector Capital, a San Francisco-based
venture capital and private equity firm.
Vector purchased a significant interest in Corel from Microsoft
(which received that interest as part of a previous investment in
Corel).
Corel has strived mightily to recover from a series of perhaps
unwise investments in a variety of software and hardware projects,
but was having difficulty reaching profitability.
The Vector acquisition will give Corel room to regroup and
refine its offerings with some sound financial backing. Nothing has
been said about the future – other than hopes for a better ability
to serve customers – but we would not be surprised if Vector ultimately
found a buyer for Corel’s assets after the company has been stabilized.
Corel
maintains a number of software offerings in addition to the WordPerfect
Office Suite, acquired from Novell as that company attempted to get
out from under a series of investments which had defocused it from
its networking software heritage.
Corel’s offerings include graphics, business process management,
and XML software for both consumers and business.
Some of Corel’s stockholders objected to the Vector Capital
purchase, claiming that the $1.05 per share purchase price was insufficient,
but Corel had diligently pursued a better deal and the Canadian courts
agreed that this was a reasonable outcome, approving the acquisition.
Corel’s
products have traditionally done best in the government and legal
markets, as well as in value-priced offerings to small business and
consumers. Corel now has a number of enterprise-directed products,
which require a somewhat different strategy; it will be interesting
to see how Vector’s financial backing might help Corel achieve their
goals for these enterprise products.
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