Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Corel to Acquire InterVideo, Master-of-None Degrees Next?
Posted by Damion Chaplin in "NEWS" @ 07:00 PM
"Corel Corporation and InterVideo today announced that the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for Corel to acquire InterVideo, a leading provider of multimedia DVD software, in an all-cash transaction at a price of $13 US per share or approximately $196 M... When the acquisition is completed, Corel will provide the industry's broadest portfolio of digital media software ranging from photo sharing and image editing products to advanced digital imaging, video editing, and high-definition DVD creation and playback software. Customers and partners will now have access to a full breadth of popular, award-winning digital media brands including WinDVD®, WinDVD Creator, Ulead® Photo Impact®, Ulead®VideoStudio™, Ulead DVD Movie Factory®, and Corel® Paint Shop® Pro- all from a single, trusted source."
OK, I'll come right out and say I'm a huge Corel stooge. I've been using CorelDRAW for 13 years now, and I really prefer the Corel suite over Adobe products, which are, for the most part, Mac programs ported to the PC. However, right about when Corel hit version 8, they started this wacky thing of buying up all the popular programs they could. At first I thought it was rather benign, because virtually no one even knew who Corel was, and anything that got their name out there was good. It became ridiculous when they bought Paint Shop Pro. Corel already had a robust and easy-to-use image editor, Photo-Paint, which they even already sold seperately. Acquiring Paint Shop Pro was akin to Adobe buying Picasa. Why? So when I see news like this, I just have to ask again, Why? Corel loves to buy up smaller companies and then do nothing with them. Remember Ventura? Exactly.
If Corel is interested in shifting to a more video-editing oriented model (and finally give up on competing with Photoshop and Illustrator), then a move like this makes sense. However, if they're still standing behind Draw as their flagship product, I think it's a dumb move. They should be making Draw an actual competetor to Illustrator instead of acquiring new things. In the end, I think Corel has become the digital media Jack-of-all-Trades and unfortunately Master-of-None.
OK, I'll come right out and say I'm a huge Corel stooge. I've been using CorelDRAW for 13 years now, and I really prefer the Corel suite over Adobe products, which are, for the most part, Mac programs ported to the PC. However, right about when Corel hit version 8, they started this wacky thing of buying up all the popular programs they could. At first I thought it was rather benign, because virtually no one even knew who Corel was, and anything that got their name out there was good. It became ridiculous when they bought Paint Shop Pro. Corel already had a robust and easy-to-use image editor, Photo-Paint, which they even already sold seperately. Acquiring Paint Shop Pro was akin to Adobe buying Picasa. Why? So when I see news like this, I just have to ask again, Why? Corel loves to buy up smaller companies and then do nothing with them. Remember Ventura? Exactly.
If Corel is interested in shifting to a more video-editing oriented model (and finally give up on competing with Photoshop and Illustrator), then a move like this makes sense. However, if they're still standing behind Draw as their flagship product, I think it's a dumb move. They should be making Draw an actual competetor to Illustrator instead of acquiring new things. In the end, I think Corel has become the digital media Jack-of-all-Trades and unfortunately Master-of-None.
