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Corel continues its struggle against the nearly ubiquitous Microsoft Office with its announcement Tuesday that its WordPerfect Office 2002 suite will ship by midyear.

Corel officials originally announced the latest plans for the suite at Comdex. New details Tuesday include word that the company will offer two editions: standard and professional.

The standard edition will feature the latest release--version 10--of Corel's WordPerfect, Presentations, and Quattro Pro. The professional edition will also include Paradox 10 and Dragon Systems' NaturallySpeaking 5.0 voice recognition software for dictating text.

Among the new features in WordPerfect 10 will be the addition of the Oxford University Press Pocket dictionary, which has 30,000 definitions. The company will also offer an upgrade to 70,000 definitions for $19.95, says Basia Rudak, communications manager for business applications at Corel.

The spreadsheet program Quattro Pro 10, meanwhile, will feature a new charting engine that enables users to decorate charts with graphics and symbols. This gives users "more power to create nice looking charts," Rudak says.

Targeting Corporate Users

WordPerfect Office 2002 will also feature enhanced groupware functions targeted at corporate users, Rudak notes.

Both editions of the applications suite include CorelCentral 10--a personal information manager (PIM). The PIM will have an e-mail client, address book, and calendar that users will be able to access from any application in the suite.

CorelCentral 10 will also include Net2Phone's Internet telephony software, which lets users place telephone calls or fax documents via the Internet.

"A user can launch a call from within the contact manager. All one has to do is click on the number," says Yonah Lloyd, vice president of business development at Net2Phone.

The software will also add voice capability to CorelCentral's e-mail client, which lets users receive voice e-mails, he notes.

WordPerfect for Windows

WordPerfect Office 2002 will be compatible with Windows 95/98/Me and Windows 2000, Rudak says. The WordPerfect word processor currently has 22 million users, most of them using it under the Windows operating system. That statistic shows that it made sense to create WordPerfect Office 2002 for the Windows platform before others. "A Linux version [of WordPerfect Office] will depend upon user demand," she says.

Though Microsoft invested $135 million in Corel last year, Rudak dismisses suggestions that Office 2002 is available only for Windows because of Microsoft's investment. "Microsoft may have invested in us, but they don't have any voting rights," she says. "Microsoft invested in Corel to emphasize the .Net platform."

Corel's plan to spin off its Linux business, announced earlier this month, also had no impact or influence on the development of WordPerfect Office 2002, she says.

Lawyers Speak, Corel Listens

The new features in WordPerfect Office 2002 come in response to user demands for greater functionality, stability, and compatibility. "Users have been constantly demanding improved compatibility with Microsoft Office applications," Rudak says.

Lawyers represent a big market for Corel's software, Rudak notes. "There was a big demand from [lawyers] to make Word documents importable to WordPerfect." Similarly, Corel took feedback from longtime WordPerfect users to enhance the features that will be seen in the new version of WordPerfect 10.

The version of WordPerfect Office due after the 2002 issue will be .Net-compatible, Rudak says. "Microsoft will hopefully release .Net midway through this year. Six months later, we will be ready."

The standard edition upgrade from WordPerfect Office 2000 to Office 2002 will be available for $159, while the professional edition upgrade will cost $259. The full standard and professional editions will cost $399 and $499, respectively.

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