Corel Completes Strategic Acquisition of Professional Graphics Products from MetaCreations
KPT®, KPT Vector Effects®, Bryce® and MetaCreations Painter™ Extend Corel’s Commitment to Graphic Artists
Ottawa, Canada and Carpinteria, California— April 10, 2000— Corel Corporation (NASDAQ: CORL, TSE: COR) and MetaCreations Corporation (Nasdaq: MCRE) today announced that Corel has acquired several industry-leading graphics software products and technologies from MetaCreations.
Corel has purchased three leading product lines widely used in the graphic arts community: MetaCreations Painter™, the Natural-Media® painting program, Kai’s Power Tools® (KPT®) and KPT Vector Effects®, top-selling plug-in applications for Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe® Illustrator®, and Bryce®, 3D landscape creation and animation software. All products are compatible with Macintosh® and Windows®. The addition of these award-winning applications will complement CorelDRAW® and strengthen Corel’s presence in the Macintosh graphics market.
“This is truly exciting news for us!” said Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief executive officer of Corel Corporation. “The acquisition fits our strategic vision of offering world-class applications for multiple platforms. Corel is committed to developing new versions of the Painter, KPT and Bryce product lines and supporting the existing customer base worldwide.”
Corel has ambitious plans for these products, including launching new versions for both the Web and retail distribution channels throughout the year. It also plans to broaden the range of localized versions worldwide. Corel and MetaCreations are pleased to announce that the
MetaCreations Painter 6.0.3 patch will soon be made available to registered users at http://www.metacreations.com/products/painter6/patches.
“Corel is an ideal company to acquire these award-winning products with its rich history of valuing graphic artists through innovation, graphics software products and the Corel World Design Contest,” said Mark Zimmer, the creator of MetaCreations Painter. “This agreement also supports MetaCreations’ strategy to focus exclusively on Web-based marketing visualization solutions.”
To ensure a smooth transition and continued development of MetaCreations Painter, Corel has contracted Mark Zimmer, Tom Hedges and John Derry, the creators of MetaCreations Painter. Corel also plans to contract additional MetaCreations engineers to assist in the development of the MetaCreations Painter, KPT and Bryce product lines.
MetaCreations Painter, KPT and Bryce have each won impressive industry awards and praise: MetaCreations Painter 6 was named 1999 Macworld Editor’s Choice Award for Best Graphics Software; KPT was rated Freakin’ Awesome (top rating) by MacAddict Magazine in June 1999; and Bryce 4 rated 5 out of 5 by Micro Publishing News in June 1999 and 4.5 out of 5 by MacHome Journal in July 1999.
MetaCreations will continue to handle customer service for the MetaCreations Painter, KPT and Bryce family of products until June 30, 2000, after which time Corel will provide full customer support.
In addition, MetaCreations will provide technical support until May 19, 2000, and will continue to respond to all technical support inquiries until June 30, 2000, from customers with whom it has annual support agreements. Corel will handle technical support starting May 20, 2000, and respond to customers with annual support agreements with MetaCreations effective July 1.
MetaCreations, based in California, sold the professional graphics software to Corel following a decision, announced last December, to restructure its business and focus solely on e-commerce visualization solutions for the Web. MetaCreations’ e-commerce visualization business is centered on the company’s industry-leading, patented MetaStream™ technology, specifically for the streaming and display of interactive 3D virtual product presentation over the Web. While the company decided to divest its graphics applications, it has continued to develop and support new versions of the products. MetaCreations expects to make additional announcements later this week regarding the divestiture of the remaining pre-packaged graphics software applications.
The acquisition by Corel includes the following products: MetaCreations Painter, MetaCreations Painter Classic, MetaCreations Painter 3D, Art Dabbler, KPT, KPT-X, Vector Effects and Bryce. Corel has also agreed to honor support and upgrade privileges to registered owners of Bryce 4, KPT 5, KPT 6, KPT Vector Effects and MetaCreations Painter 6, subject to proof of purchase and within applicable time limits.
Corel's Linux Development Ahead of Schedule
CorelDRAW® 9 for Linux® to ship two months early
Ottawa, Canada – April 11, 2000 – Corel Corporation (NASDAQ: CORL, TSE: COR) is pleased to announce impressive developments on its Linux®
graphics initiatives. CorelDRAW® 9 for Linux® will be available in July, two months earlier than scheduled. In addition, Corel VENTURA™ Publisher 8.5 for
Linux® and Windows® will be available by the end of this year and the free download of Corel PHOTO-PAINT® 9 for Linux® will be available in June.
CorelDRAW® 9 Graphics Suite for Linux® will be the first robust, mature and full-featured graphics suite for the Linux platform. It will give Linux users access to
the same outstanding graphics tools currently only available on the Macintosh® and Windows platforms.
"We promised to bring our two flagship products to Linux by the end of this year – and we're delivering," said Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief
executive officer of Corel Corporation. "We are the leading applications vendor for Linux® and now we're broadening the scope of applications available for
Linux on the desktop."
Corel VENTURA™ Publisher 8.5 will be available for Linux® and Windows® by the end of the year. This is the first update to this product since 1998. Major
refinements in this release include strengthening PDF (Portable Document Format) and Web functionality. PDF is the de facto standard for distributing
documents electronically. Increased focus on PDF and Web capabilities will provide Linux® and Windows® users with powerful multi-use publishing alternatives.
"This expedited date is a credit to the cooperation between our engineers and the open-source WINE community," said Derek Burney, executive vice president
of engineering and chief technology officer of Corel Corporation. "Our inventive and aggressive Linux® and Windows® initiatives have enabled us to develop
simultaneous versions of Corel VENTURA™ Publisher 8.5 for Linux® and Windows®."
The first beta of CorelDRAW® 9 for Linux® was sent to beta sites April 7. This beta includes Corel PHOTO-PAINT® 9 for Linux®, which will be released as a
stand-alone free download in June. This continuing momentum has helped Corel to open up another market for Linux products and further enhance its existing
Windows market.
Following the launch of Corel® LINUX® OS in November 1999, Corel's U.S. retail market share for Linux increased more than eight times to 19.3 per cent
as of February 2000. Prior to the release of Corel LINUX® OS, the company held 2.3 per cent of the retail market share based on sales of Corel®
WordPerfect® 8 for Linux®. Corel also released WordPerfect® Office 2000 for Linux® in March.
CorelDRAW®9 for Linux® Beta1 Available
As part of the Corel Solution Partners membership, we are providing Platinum and Paradox members with the opportunity to obtain
a CorelDRAW®9 for Linux® Beta1 CD. If you are interested in obtaining this Beta1 CD, please e-mail your
request to partners@corel.com. All Corel Solution Partners members requesting this Beta1 CD will be required to complete,
sign and return a "BETA Testing Agreement" before the Beta1 CD is shipped. Once again, these Beta1 CD's are only available to Corel Solution Partners Platinum and Paradox members only.
Alternatively, members can become officially registered Corel Beta testers by applying to
the Corel BETA Program located on-line at: http://www.corel.com/betaprogram/index.htm.
