Corel acquires Jasc Software

It looks like Corel really wants to be a big player in the graphics industry again. This is a part of a press release which just hit the web (read the full article by clicking on the link on the left):

"Ottawa, Canada (October 14, 2004) – Corel Corporation today acquired Jasc Software, Inc., the award-winning developer of the Paint Shop™ family of digital photography and image editing software. A critical milestone in Corel's ongoing growth strategy, this acquisition follows four consecutive quarters of profitability and a successfully completed turnaround since Corel was taken private in August 2003. The acquisition further extends Corel's position as a powerful force in the packaged software industry providing exceptional office and personal productivity and graphics products. Corel will now serve a combined base of more than 60 million customers worldwide with an extended software portfolio that combines innovative photo editing and graphics creation, vector illustration and technical graphics applications along with Corel's popular WordPerfect line of products. The acquisition is expected to officially close by the end of October 2004.

Corel corporate headquarters will remain in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Corel will maintain the former Jasc facility in Minneapolis, MN for the Paint Shop family operations. Amish Mehta will continue to serve as the Chief Executive Officer of Corel Corporation. Several members of the Jasc senior management team will join Corel.

Corel will sell Paint Shop™ Pro®, Paint Shop™ Pro® Studio and Paint Shop™ Photo Album™ as stand alone products and will continue to provide worldwide service and support to customers under the Corel brand. In addition, Corel will actively support new R&D initiatives for the Paint Shop family, ensuring that the next-generation of Jasc products will continue to flourish.

In August 2003, Corel was acquired by Vector Capital Group, a San Francisco-based venture capital concern which currently manages approximately 500 million dollars in capital. Vector helped Corel create and execute a focused product and market strategy – leveraging Corel's most popular and enduring products, the WordPerfect Office Suite, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and Corel Painter – while streamlining its operations and product lines. With the support of Vector, Corel is poised for future growth with the addition of the Paint Shop family as well as through future acquisitions on the horizon.

Corel's innovative software offerings, which include the popular WordPerfect Office Suite, the CorelDRAW Graphics Suite and Corel Painter Natural-Media®, painting and illustration software, have earned a strong following among value-conscious consumers, graphics professionals, and businesses around the world. This acquisition extends Corel's unique value proposition to millions of customers worldwide and dramatically expands Corel's reach in both the business and consumer graphics market sectors.

Now, Corel can provide users of graphics software a complete migration path from the most basic photo organizing and sharing, to image improvement and retouching, all the way to advanced image editing and graphics creation. The addition of the Paint Shop product family allows Corel to better serve sizable new consumer graphics markets while expanding its coverage of the business graphics market segment."

Does this acquisition mean that a *real* competitor for Photoshop will be around the corner, and that Adobe really needs to start being afraid now?