Corel buying InterVideo for $196M US

[Chief Monkey]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/money/national/ ... video.html

[sjj1805]

Thats very interesting and I wonder what the future now holds for Ulead,
especially DVD Workshop 3.

[DVDDoug]

This might be a good thing. Corel has some solid products. They have some affordable programs, but they are not afraid to offer a high quality program at a high price. And, they have published phone numbers for tech support!

On the downside, they are not profitable.

[Terry Stetler]

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/52673.html

Corel's Resurrection

After losing market share to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft in the late 1990s, Corel faded from the memories of many designers. Corel's resurrection began earlier this year when it held an initial public offering in May. The company has also partnered with Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) Latest News about Dell, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) Latest News about Hewlett-Packard and others to expand its markets.

After selling off parts of its business -- DAZ Productions acquired its Bryce product and Blast Radius acquired XMetal in 2004 -- Corel began making some acquisitions of its own. Corel bought Paint Shop developer Jasc to extend its graphics software portfolio later that same year and scooped up WinZip computing, makers of an aftermarket compression utility, in May 2005.

The Acquisition Engine

"The InterVideo acquisition further builds out Corel's content creation line with one of the strongest codecs and DVD playback engines on the market. InterVideo is the most visible brand in the segment. It competes with Cybermedia, which offers a lower cost alternative. InterVideo has the visibility, marketing muscle and the products that sell aggressively on retail," Enderle Group Principal Analyst Rob Enderle told the E-Commerce Times.

Clearly on a multimedia track with picture and video tools, Enderle predicts Corel could decide to venture into music at some point with another acquisition. (perhaps Steinberg?) He compared Corel's acquisition strategy with Cisco's -- buying small companies that build out a targeted portfolio.

The acquisition will be financed through a combination of Corel's cash reserves, debt financing, and InterVideo's cash and cash equivalents which stood at approximately $105 million as of June 30, 2006. The acquisition is subject to InterVideo shareholder approval, regulatory approvals, and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2006 and to be accretive in the second quarter after closing.

[editfan]

Funny the ink has hardly dried between Intervideo and Ulead.

[Xyzzy2]

(checked, no 1st April)

Oh f***.

So effectively Ulead now belongs to Corel.
Let me think, Corel now has 3 image editors Photo-Paint, PhotoShop Pro and PhotoImpact. Some will go the way of the dinosaurs I am afraid.

And I'd like to mention here that my previous and beloved image editor of all times is PicturePublisher. Produced by Micrografx, which was bought by Corel. Then, PicturePublisher disappeared. Now, if you are lucky, you can buy latest full version (ie. 10 Pro) on ebay for 250-300 USD...

I hope Ulead produces good income, because Corel then may leave the whole brand untouched. If no, well, Ulead cannot cut on QA or support because there's nothing to cut. So the products may be next. Video part could be left untouched, but PhotoImpact...?

X.

[sjj1805]

Yes, anyone still got one of those squarial satelite dishes from BSB (British Satelite Broadcasting) before it got bought out by Rupert Murdoch and his Sky Television?

There is a trend here

[htchien]

It's still not clear and too early to say the future of some Ulead products I think....

H.T.

[Xyzzy2]

Regarding PI we should know before Xmas.

PI11 was announced 28 Sep 2005 afair, so if no news will be announced till Xmas we probably shall never hear about PI again

X.