| Corel pussyfoots on WordPerfect ODF |
Jan. 20, 2006
Corel Corp. recently released a new version of its WordPerfect Office Suite, WordPerfect Office X3.
This latest edition of the venerable office suite looks good for Windows users. As PC Magazine editor Ed Mendelson wrote, "Think of an annoyance in Microsoft Office, and you probably won't find it in Corel WordPerfect Office X3."
In particular, the renewed office suite boasts of its ability to import and export documents, spreadsheets, and presentations to Adobe's PDF (Portable Document Format). What it doesn't have, however, is the ability to import or export to the open-standard ODF (Open Document Format).
This is somewhat surprising, since Greg Wood, communications manager for Corel WordPerfect, recently pointed out that, ""Corel is an original member of the OASIS Technical Committee on the OpenDocument format, and one of Corel's senior developers is among the original four authors of the ODF specification."
Wood went on to say in that September 2005 eWEEK.com interview that, "Suffice to say, Corel remains committed to working alongside OASIS and other technology vendors to ensure the continued evolution of the ODF standard and the adoption of open standards industry-wide."
Still, at that time, Wood was unwilling to commit to ODF support in WordPerfect.
"It is not appropriate at this time for Corel to disclose its plans for OpenDocument in future versions of WordPerfect Office," said Wood.
Never-the-less, it was assumed that since Corel had helped create ODF, the format would be included in the next version of WordPerfect. It hasn't been.
When asked about this, Wood insisted, "Corel's position on ODF remains the same. Corel continues to view Open Standards, including XML, ODF, and PDF, as a way for customers to maintain access to their documents, freeing them from the risks and costs related to reliance on a single vendor."
So, why no ODF? Since WordPerfect is updated on an 18-month cycle, the next time it could be included in the main distribution won't be until 2008.
It comes down to customer demand.
"Our involvement with OASIS and ODF continues. While Corel does not disclose details around our plans for future versions of WordPerfect Office, ultimately inclusion of ODF in WordPerfect Office will be based on customer demand for this format. At this time we are not seeing an expressed demand for ODF from WordPerfect Office customers, but we will continue to evaluate demand for ODF closely," said Wood.
ODF support could be incorporated into X3 with a patch if sufficient demand does materialize. For now, though, if you want support for ODF you'll need StarOffice 8, OpenOffice.org 2.0, or IBM's WorkPlace 2.5.
If you're holding your breath waiting for WordPerfect to return to Linux -- stop.
"We're not seeing sufficient demand for a Linux version of WordPerfect to warrant development at this time, but we will continue to evaluate the market for Linux, that we may offer a product when it is profitable to do so," said Wood.
--Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols
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