Corel Applications To Be Served To Consumers Via ASPs

Corel Corp. today said it has reached an agreement with C Me Run Corp. that could see its desktop software served up online for consumers via their Internet service providers (ISPs) and through Web portals.

Hudson, Mass.-based C Me Run aims to help such ISPs and portals quickly becomes application service providers (ASPs) by managing the technology required to deliver an Internet-computing approach to programs typically run on desktops.

Corel said that C Me Run will host its WordPerfect Office, CorelDraw, Corel Print House and Corel Custom Photo applications, as well as its collections of clipart and Web images.

Corel spokeswoman Melanie Rushworth told Newsbytes that the deal marks the first partnership with a company providing ASP services targeting consumers.

Late last year, Ottawa, Ontario-based Corel announced it had begun a pilot project with another Canadian company, FutureLink Corp., to provide ASP hosting of its applications targeted at FutureLinks's business customers.

Ironically, C Me Run and FutureLink, born in Calgary, Alberta, wound up in a legal dispute earlier this year after C Me Run was launched by former a FutureLink chief executive officer, Cameron Chell, and a handful of other ex-staffers.

FutureLink launched a lawsuit in January claiming that Chell and others on his team helped develop a plan to enter a similar market for individual consumers while still at the Canadian company, which is now based in Irvine, Calif.

C Me Run, which, at the time of the lawsuit, was in the middle of a reverse-takeover of Fundae Acquisition Corp. in order to quickly become a publicly-traded company, soon launched a counter suit against FutureLink. In late April, the two companies said they had reached "an amicable resolution" of their dispute with no payments being made by either party.

Both C Me Run and FutureLink rely heavily on technology from Citrix Systems Inc. [NASDAQ:CTXS] of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to host Windows-based applications.

Corel's Rushworth said ASPs have the option of using Corel's Windows-based applications or recently developed versions of the same software capable of running on the open-source Linux platforms.

Carey Stanton, executive vice-president for business development and legal affairs at Corel, said the ASP approach could be "a rapid area of growth" for the company.

Corel investors are banking on the company finding rapid growth somewhere, having seen the values of their stock drop from a recent high of more than $44 to less than $4 today.

In April, Corel said it had enough cash on hand to operate for just 90 days if it didn't come up with a new source of funds and was not successful in a proposed takeover of California-based Inprise Corp. [NASDAQ:INPR], maker of well-known Borland software development tools.

The Inprise deal was officially scuttled last week, and Chief Financial Officer John Blaine said his company was evaluating "offers of alternative financing it has recently received." At the time, Blaine and Chief Executive Officer Michael Cowpland would not reveal whether the company was currently looking to borrow money, sell equity, or is pondering mergers with other companies.

Some analysts have calculated that Corel's cash could be completely tapped out when its employees are next paid - before the end of this month.

Corel can be found online at: http://www.corel.com/.

C Me Run is at http://www.cmerun.com/.

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com.