“Could ‘Cortel’ challenge Wintel? According to a report in the
Toronto Globe and Mail on Thursday, Corel is talking to Intel, and
an unnamed OEM with a view to launching a cheap Corel Linux PC,
presumably also loaded with the WordPerfect suite. In an interview
Corel CEO Michael Cowpland just before Corel’s annual shareholders’
meeting on Wednesday. Cowpland said that talks had been going on
‘for months’.”
“This claim was later confirmed by Intel spokesman Doug Cooper,
who added that “it’s certainly good for consumers”. But this is
where it gets complicated. Shortly afterwards Intel denied it was
in any such talks, and said that it was just naturally in an
ongoing relationship with “hundreds and hundreds” of software
companies to make sure their code ran properly on Intel chips.”
“The Linux PC idea is a no-brainer so far as market interest
is concerned, and it’s just surprising that it has taken so long to
get this far. Although the idea could be easily emulated by other
consortia, the potential market size is big enough for quite a few
players.”