Corel
Sometimes we miss the boat and never realize we were standing at the dock. Take Coral (http://www.corel.com/) for example. I seen them at trade shows, ask about their products, promised evaluation copies of which we have never received and continually wonder how they still exist, yet they do, so someone is buying their products. Normally I would not waste me time mentioning them, but we use Random House Dictionary to supplement our spell checking in Microsoft Office and I was looking at ad from Coral and they mention a good guy price for their Oxford Dictionary (which is good) and how it was a plug in for their WordPerfect. I thought, that is nice, I would love to see how in interfaces, but since Coral is notorious for promising and not delivering, I decide not to call their PR Firm and ask about it. As I though about it, I thought what a waste, WordPerfect used to be the number one word processing software and now who knows where it stand. With a feature like the dictionary integrated into it with its spell checker it could become a god save but alas, we can’t get it, so we will never know. And their marking of it is abominable. They ought to lower their price so people will buy it. No one is going to pay $149 for it, not into today's marketed when you can get openoffice for free (http://www.openoffice.org/ from Oracle) which gives MS office a run for its money.
Of course I am not going to say what they should sell it for but I do no this, look at the video market and look at the price of DVDs. When VHS first came out is was extremely expensive, so the piracy market quickly developed. The manufactures found that you can sell something for $20 and people will still steal it from you. Sell it for $10 and people will buy it from you. The DVD market is seeing that today. Sell something over $20 and it will be on the pirates list, sell it for $10 and people will but it from you, not the pirate.
Now, I am not advocating that Corel should sell WordPerfect for $10 or even $20, but I am saying their marketing ought to take a realist look at their product and figure out at what price it will sell for and market it again. These are the questions the boars of directors should be thinking, not a PBS station manager. There is no reason for it to be left in the dark as it has been for so long. This brings me back to someone really missed the boat on this one and never knew it.
Many have asked why we do not recommend certain product which they believe are worthy. The reason is simple. Many times manufactures promise to send us stuff for evaluation, yet they never do. I have always thought if you do not want us to review a product we have asked for, simply say so. But when you promise and fail to deliver I always think something may be wrong. I know Corel for years has promised us a copy of the products, yet they never deliver so why or how can I recommend them. The only reason I mentioned them earlier is I am tired of seeing a super product go down the tubes. San Disk Memory promises much but never delivers even though they make excellent products, yet this year for Christmas Gifts I had to include them because the value for the dollar was just too great to pass on. Sad though when I think about SanDisk. We saw them at CES this year (2011) and I showed them a broken flash drive, guaranteed for life, their response was that it was old and never once said they would replace it. Kingston would have handed me a new one and that is the difference, one cares the other does not. Kingston, here locally and always following up, makes it hard not to recommend Kingston, but the others?
Them there are the manufactures. Garmin makes a lot of GPS systems, not only for automotive use but also for marine and aviation. The problem we have had with Garmin is they have hidden cost which can be extreme (aviation for example) or they simply do not work when you need them too. We bought the European Maps, yet the unit could never acquire the satellites in Europe. We mentioned this to them and never had it explained why out unit failed. That does not mean they do not work, the units we have work here but not in Europe, why , I do not know, but it is hard to recommend them, when you have a unit that does not work. As a mater of fact the Comedian Saint Bobby takes a baseball bat to them on stage, just to show how he feels about being ripped off.
So who really cares? Fortune for many of us we have a lot if influential people who support our business and KBLI in general and they actually read our web site. When we say what others are thinking they do pass it on, so yes it does help to complain and put it in writing. (© 2011 R Johnson) Copyright 2010 KBLI TV & Radio, University of La Jolla.. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.