Corel saved by killing Linux

COREL SAID its six years of financial woe are over now that it has dumped WordPerfect for Linux and Corel Linux.

The outfit is set to have promising first and second quarters in 2006 and a return to public trading soon according to Graham Brown, executive vice president of software development at Corel.

Corel was one of the first to offer GNU/Linux products including the first versions of the WordPerfect word processor in 1995 and 1997. A Wine-based version of the complete WordPerfect Office suite followed in early 2000. In 1999, Corel also released Corel Linux, a Debian-based distribution based on the KDE desktop with several proprietary modifications, including a file manager.

In 2003, Corel was acquired by Vector Capital and focused entirely on being a Windows outfit.

Brown said that the decision to drop Corel Linux was " successful strategy for Corel and an early step toward "refocusing of Corel's business".

More about this, here.