“Back in March, Corel…was so toxic – so untouchable in
Wall Street parlance – that analysts at some firms weren’t even
allowed to write about it. The Canadian software company had
purchased the left-for-dead WordPerfect division of Novell (NOVL)
in 1996 and, except for one quarter late last year, it had lost
money ever since.”
“But that was 1,425 percentage points ago.”
“What’s happened is that Corel has managed to convince Wall
Street that despite its considerable problems (more on them later),
it has vast potential as a vendor of Linux-based programs for
desktop computers. For the uninitiated, Linux is an open-source
operating system that many think (and hope) will someday challenge
the hegemony of Microsoft’s proprietary operating system, Windows.
In recent months, anything within shouting distance of the word
Linux has surged. And this week’s action was particularly
astounding.”