Google and Corel

Google paused from its fight against becoming a brand name turned generic term like Xerox, Aspirin, and Kleenex long enough to release Google Apps for Your Domain (in beta, of course). The “software as a service” products will come thick and fast now that Google jumped in. They’re all trying to catch pioneers like HyperOffice, but this technology eases aggravations for many small businesses. Check out one or more soon. Corel, the company now in charge of WordPerfect (remember them?) and some other interesting products (Corel Draw) bought WinZip recently and just now bought InterVideo. I’m not sure what they plan to do, but they have a good reputation of selling good products (WordPerfect and Corel Draw) at substantially less money than Microsoft counterparts. I’m always amazed at how reticent Canadian companies seem to be about aggressive PR because they always appear too polite. Believe me, that’s not a problem for most American companies and their PR people. White box PC vendors sometimes include a Corel productivity suite rather than the much more expensive Microsoft Office software. If you have a chance, check them out. Of course, I started using WordPerfect back in 1984, so I’m a bit nostalgic. An IBM PC with a monochrome screen and WordPerfect could write books as fast or faster than a current PC with Windows and Word, I promise. I even remember putting many documents on the same floppy disk as my WordStar program because the IBM XT had yet to arrive with it’s enormous 10 Megabyte (not a typo) hard drive.