TMCnet News
WordPerfect Office 12-The Other Office-Arrives Today! Full-Featured, Compatible Office Suite Offers Value-Priced Alternative to Microsoft Office OTTAWA --(Business Wire)-- April 27, 2004 -- Corel announces that WordPerfect(R) Office 12 - the newest version of its award winning office suite and the leading alternative to Microsoft(R) Office - is available today in stores across North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia. Delivering a powerful combination of robust features, suite-wide enhancements to compatibility, and new functionality to increase users' productivity, WordPerfect Office 12 answers the market's demand for a feature-rich, value-priced office suite that is highly compatible with Microsoft Office.WordPerfect Office 12 boosts productivity with the trusted power of WordPerfect for word processing, Quattro(R) Pro for spreadsheets and Presentations(TM) for multimedia slide shows. The suite also includes an address book for managing contacts, the WordPerfect Wireless Office Suite, and the new WordPerfect OfficeReady(TM) template browser, a powerful platform for managing WordPerfect Office templates, including the 40 new templates bundled with the suite. These elements, coupled with Corel's flexible licensing terms and expanded support options, provide users with a choice they can trust. "The release of WordPerfect Office 12 signals a new era of growth for one of the world's best-recognized office suites," said Amish Mehta, CEO of Corel. "With the support of over 18 million users worldwide and a global distribution network spanning five continents, WordPerfect Office 12 is the clear choice for value-conscious consumers, small-to-medium sized businesses (SMBs), as well as government and legal customers seeking a full-featured, value-priced office suite that can co-exist within a Microsoft environment." "Today many users are seeking an alternative to the high costs of Microsoft Office and Corel has responded," said Richard Carriere, Director of Office Productivity for Corel. "WordPerfect Office 12 offers customers straightforward licensing terms, flexible support options and savings of up to 63 per cent over the cost of Microsoft Office. It's also widely available thanks to a distribution network that includes significant partnerships with leading PC manufacturers. These benefits, combined with the suite's extensive file support for PDF, XML, HTML and Microsoft Office formats, position WordPerfect Office 12 as the office suite best equipped to function within a variety of office settings." Focus on Compatibility Emphasizing compatibility with Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office 12 features enhancements designed to increase productivity and simplify the exchange of information: -0- *T - Enhanced! Compatibility with Microsoft Office - Based on user feedback, many file compatibility enhancements with Microsoft Office have been added. With WordPerfect Office 12, it is easier than ever before to exchange information with clients using Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint(R). - New! Workspace Manager - The new Workspace Manager allows users to easily adjust the user interface to meet their needs. Users can customize WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Presentations to place WordPerfect Office 12 features, including toolbars and menu items, where they would normally be found in Microsoft Office 2002. Users can also choose between WordPerfect Office or Microsoft Office-style keyboard shortcuts, menus and toolbar interfaces, a Lotus(R) 1-2-3(R) mode or the WordPerfect 5.1 Classic Mode. Legal users of WordPerfect Office 12 will enjoy easy access to the legal tools and keyboard shortcuts they use most, all by activating the WordPerfect Legal Mode from within the Workspace Manager. By allowing users to access tools and features from the locations that are familiar to them, WordPerfect Office 12 dramatically reduces training and ramp-up time - two critical barriers to adopting an alternative office suite. - New! Compatibility Toolbars - WordPerfect Office 12 allows users to open, edit, print and save Microsoft Office files without searching through menus or making multiple selections. Users can now quickly publish documents to PDF, the Web, XML, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or Microsoft PowerPoint at the click of a button - saving time and dramatically reducing the complexity of working with Microsoft Office files. - New! Upgrade Installation - When installing WordPerfect Office 12, users can now choose to upgrade their existing installation without first uninstalling their previous version(i). Customizations and preference settings are automatically forwarded to a new version of WordPerfect Office - saving time and making it easier than ever to upgrade. - New! WordPerfect OfficeReady Browser - The WordPerfect OfficeReady Browser supplies a fast and easy-to-use template browser that helps small businesses manage their templates and lets them focus on working, not searching. The WordPerfect OfficeReady Browser enables users to organize, preview and access WordPerfect Office 12 templates in one easy-to-use browser, includes 40 new templates, and provides single-click access to many more via the Web. *T Praise for WordPerfect Office 12! "With exceptional Microsoft Word compatibility, law firms can choose WordPerfect to satisfy their complex document creation needs without compromising external compatibility with Word-using clients," said Ross Kodner, Senior Legal Technologist and CEO of MicroLaw, Inc., a leading North American legal technology consultancy. "As more legal professionals take the 'PDF First' approach to electronic document exchange, the burden of being word-processor-specific is lifted and lawyers are able to select the best tool for their workflow - inevitably favoring WordPerfect." "The compatibility enhancements in WordPerfect Office 12 are a real benefit to our customers," said Thai Lee, President of Software House International. "Combine this with WordPerfect Office's outstanding PDF, XML, and HTML capabilities, plus its support for over 80 other file formats, and we're able to offer our customers a very flexible office suite." "WordPerfect is a name in office suites that our customers know and trust," said Scott Knight of SaltSpring Software. "The enhancements to compatibility in WordPerfect Office 12, combined with its competitive pricing, make it a real value for our customers and an ideal alternative to other office suites." Flexible Licensing and Expanded Customer Support WordPerfect Office 12 offers a straightforward set of licensing and support options that put the customer's needs first. Corel offers two programs that help ease license administration, reduce software deployment time and lower total cost of ownership. Benefits include multi-platform licensing as well as home and laptop usage. Those who purchase WordPerfect Office 12 also benefit from Corel's responsive and efficient support options. Registered users enjoy unlimited, free web-based support, and have access to support packages and custom solutions designed to address the specific needs of consumers, small-to-medium sized businesses and commercial clients. To learn more about Corel's licensing programs and support options, please visit www.corel.com. Pricing and Availability Pricing for the standard edition of WordPerfect Office 12 starts at a suggested retail price (SRP) of $299.99 USD for the full version, $149.99 USD for the upgrade and $99.99 USD for the Student & Teacher Edition, available beginning in June 2004. The Professional edition of the suite, including the relational database, Paradox, is available as a license-only media pack for a suggested retail price of $349.99 USD for the full version or $199.99 USD for the upgrade. Prices may vary by region. Under Corel's competitive upgrade policy, those seeking to migrate from another office suite can purchase WordPerfect Office 12 at the same upgrade price as existing WordPerfect Office users. Products whose users are eligible for upgrade pricing include: Microsoft(R) Office 2000 or higher(ii), Microsoft Works 7, Microsoft Works Suite 2000 or higher, Corel(R) WordPerfect 8 or higher, Paradox(R) 8 or higher, WordPerfect Family Pack, Corel(R) Painter(TM) 8(ii) and CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 11 or higher(ii). English versions of WordPerfect Office 12 are available today across North America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South East Asia. German, French, Spanish and Brazilian-Portuguese versions of WordPerfect Office 12 will be available beginning in the summer of 2004. Customers may purchase WordPerfect Office 12 directly from Corel's online store at www.corel.com or through one of Corel's reseller partners. WordPerfect Office 12 is available at leading U.S. resellers including: Amazon.com, Buy.com, CDW, Circuit City, CompUSA, Dell.com, Frys Electronics, Gateway.com, Insight, Micro Center, PC Connection, PC Mall, and Tiger Direct. In Canada, customers may purchase WordPerfect Office 12 at leading resellers including STAPLES Business Depot, Future Shop, Best Buy Canada and Compusmart. For a complete list of resellers and Corel partners, please visit www.corel.com/partners. Additional Information WordPerfect Office 12 runs on more supported versions of Windows than Microsoft Office 2003, including Windows Server 2003, Windows XP (with SP1 Home or Professional Edition), Windows NT 4 (with SP6a), Windows 2000 (with SP4) or Windows 98 SE. WordPerfect Office 12 includes multilingual writing tools for many languages including French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian. The suite also includes 40 new templates, the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, 9,500 clipart images, 600 TrueType fonts and more than 180 photos. To learn more about the new release of WordPerfect Office 12 or to download the trial version, please visit www.wordperfect.com. (i) Applies to WordPerfect Office 10 and higher (ii) Full and upgrade versions About Corel Corporation Corel provides innovative software solutions and services that help millions of customers worldwide improve their productivity. Founded in 1985, the Company is best known for its leading graphics and office productivity solutions, including CorelDRAW(R) and WordPerfect(R). With its headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, Corel has offices around the globe. For more information, please visit www.corel.com. (C) 2004 Corel Corporation. All rights reserved. Corel, WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Presentations, Painter, CorelDRAW and the Corel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation and/or its subsidiaries. All other product, font and company names and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
