A report in TechCrunch states that Corel will announce plans to acquire Parallels as soon as today. Parallels, which makes popular virtualization software, will remain independent from Corel.
“Some employees at Parallels have already been briefed on the acquisition, which is expected to be announced to the whole company today,” the report notes. “Terms have not been disclosed but we understand it is an all-cash deal.”
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Corel, as you may know, makes software products such as CorelDraw and WordPerfect and is, in the words of parent firm Vector, “highly profitable.”
Parallels, meanwhile, is most famous for Parallels Desktop, the Mac-based virtualization software that I happen to use and recommend.
What’s unclear, of course, is the synergy that may exist between these two companies. TechCrunch speculates that Corel could perhaps use Parallels’ technologies to bring its Windows-based application family to the Mac.
Thanks to Mary Jo Foley for tipping me off to this.
skane2600
<p>I too didn't realize that Corel was still in business. </p><p><br></p><p> I think WordPerfect must hold the record for the most sold off company in tech. Had they fully embraced Windows earlier things might have been different. They resisted making a Windows version and when they finally did, they tried to continue to roll their own printer drivers rather than using the standard Windows ones. I remember I crashed their first attempt in the first 10 min of use.</p><p><br></p><p>On the positive side, their "reveal codes" option seemed to be at least a "spiritual" predecessor to HTML.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#374000">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Perhaps during the time WordPerfect for Windows was being planned the Windows printer drivers were bad, but by the time it was released (the Windows 3.1 time-frame) Windows had a very good printing system. With TrueType fonts, Windows supported WYSIWYG while WordPerfect (at least the legacy versions) used the "guess what 'Large' means" approach. And "Large" could vary considerably from printer to printer. Not to mention the dreaded "This page is too complicated to print" message. Windows 3.1 with an inkjet printer really brought desktop publishing to the masses.</p><p><br></p><p>Technological origins are always tricky to pin down. You could say that WordPerfect made the HTML-like approach relatively well-known even if DCF/Script by IBM did it first. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#374289">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>I must have used the first version of WordPerfect for Windows but got the date for the 5.2 version instead. On the other hand I'm not sure that the time difference between the original WordPerfect for Windows (1991) and Windows 3.1 (1992) could accurately be described as "long before". </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#374291">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>I was really just acknowledging what you posted. My point was just that a lot more non-technical people were using "reveal codes" in WordPerfect than knew about markup on mainframe and minicomputer platforms.</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#374458">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>I guess it depends on one's definition of "non-technical". People dabble in HTML to a much greater extent than people dabbled in mini or mainframe markup languages. I suspect that 99% percent of the activity using those early markup systems was done with a professional purpose. Not the case for the use of HTML markup.</p>