They have a couple of products that are interesting.
- WordPerfect Office to help enhance iWork.
- Painter because it's cool.
- Paintshop for a consumer drawing product.
- KPT
There's also a lot of crap in their product line that could be retired. I'd bet the Vector Capital would like to get their money back.
Even though Apple is IMO an artists platform, and Painter is a really excellent (the best true) painting application the majority of Mac users are Photoshop freaks, (or both like me) but If Apple were to buy Corel the user base would demand more photoshop style features, and less concentration would go into the painting application. With release #9 Painter just made a huge leap foreword, and it's almost a perfect painting app. It's much closer to release #6, and it corrected features that were stalled, or disliked in Release #8.
I think the most requested feature is correct color mixing in the mixing pallet. But I'd rather Apple left painter alone. I like it just the way it is.
Buying Skype and integrating the technology into iChat would allow Apple to revolutionize telephony in the same way they have already done to music.
They could deliver a revolutionary telephony product to home users and businesses - which would completely blow-away the current generation telephones. - And blow away the old style telecommunications companies in the process.
Using either a computer or a dedicated iPhone device, Apple could offer:
Smart routing offering internet or landline calling.
High-quality audio.
Video calling option.
Conferencing option
Callee finding option.
Free international calls.
Text message send & receive.
Built in Voicemail
Digital addressbook and so on.
Offices would no longer have to install two sets of network cabling and a dedicated internal telephone system. And so on.
Why Skype and not just use iChat technology? Try using iChat through a corporate firewall. Skype tech seems much more reliable and scalable than iChat.
DivX Networks -- the future of video distribution is digital as well.
Good idea! There was a news article recently about the possibility of DivX 6 being able to record HDTV quality/quantity of data on existing media with existing burners. It just could catch on...although Sony would not like the idea.
So iTunes is on cell phones. And .mac synchs all over the place. I'm seeing pies in the sky.
So, if you had a .mac-capable cell phone, with Skype installed, you could be charged for internet time instead of the standard outlandish data-transmission rates that current service providers charge. And to make your phone calls, you use Aplpe's Skype or SkypeOut. SkypeOut's current 1st-world rates is at less than 2 cents a minute.
Internet telephony revolutionizing cell phones. Like I say, pie in the sky. Could happen.
So iTunes is on cell phones. And .mac synchs all over the place. I'm seeing pies in the sky.
So, if you had a .mac-capable cell phone, with Skype installed, you could be charged for internet time instead of the standard outlandish data-transmission rates that current service providers charge. And to make your phone calls, you use Aplpe's Skype or SkypeOut. SkypeOut's current 1st-world rates is at less than 2 cents a minute.
Internet telephony revolutionizing cell phones. Like I say, pie in the sky. Could happen.
--B
NO. Not cell phones! No one mentioned cell phones. I am talking landlines - home phones and office phones. The cellphone business still has a couple of years to live.
Imagine an ethernet powered office phone. With a conventional design - a handset - an iPodesque lcd screen and dialler. Looks like a phone. Is an iChat/skype terminal. It's just like a telephone but better in every conceivable way.
Imagine an Airport express enabled home phone. With a conventional handset and design with an iPod esqe lcd screen and dialler. Suddenly you can make as many simultanous calls as you have phones.
Office telephone systems are incredibly expensive to buy and install.
Home phones are cheap - until you want a system that can support multiple lines and route calls to any phone. All of them have truly terrible interfaces.
There is an opportunity here - and while Skype are having a go - they need presence in the hardware space to make a real difference.
They could buy something to give them a corporate "in". I think one way to go would be to buy someone like NetGear and then try to become the main vendor of add-on wireless networking products (hubs, cards etc.).
Making a splash in SIP is a good opportunity. A WiFi SIP phone would be a good product. All the SIP vendors are people you never heard of like Sipura, except for the ancient high-priced stuff from Cisco.
Another possibility would be a SAN vendor, for their backoffice push.
Frankly, however, acquisitions seldom work well; the whole is usually less than the sum of the parts.
Comments
Rooster
They have a couple of products that are interesting.
- WordPerfect Office to help enhance iWork.
- Painter because it's cool.
- Paintshop for a consumer drawing product.
- KPT
There's also a lot of crap in their product line that could be retired. I'd bet the Vector Capital would like to get their money back.
Originally posted by drewprops
The people who make the Roomba vacuum cleaners. Then they can start installing spinning saw blades and pin-swing-hammer-arms that sync to iTunes.
WHAM!
But then they'd have to change Roomba's name to the iSuck.
Originally posted by Dr. Phreak
What about Corel?
They have a couple of products that are interesting.
- WordPerfect Office to help enhance iWork.
- Painter because it's cool.
- Paintshop for a consumer drawing product.
- KPT
There's also a lot of crap in their product line that could be retired. I'd bet the Vector Capital would like to get their money back.
Even though Apple is IMO an artists platform, and Painter is a really excellent (the best true) painting application the majority of Mac users are Photoshop freaks, (or both like me) but If Apple were to buy Corel the user base would demand more photoshop style features, and less concentration would go into the painting application. With release #9 Painter just made a huge leap foreword, and it's almost a perfect painting app. It's much closer to release #6, and it corrected features that were stalled, or disliked in Release #8.
I think the most requested feature is correct color mixing in the mixing pallet. But I'd rather Apple left painter alone. I like it just the way it is.
Buying Skype and integrating the technology into iChat would allow Apple to revolutionize telephony in the same way they have already done to music.
They could deliver a revolutionary telephony product to home users and businesses - which would completely blow-away the current generation telephones. - And blow away the old style telecommunications companies in the process.
Using either a computer or a dedicated iPhone device, Apple could offer:
Smart routing offering internet or landline calling.
High-quality audio.
Video calling option.
Conferencing option
Callee finding option.
Free international calls.
Text message send & receive.
Built in Voicemail
Digital addressbook and so on.
Offices would no longer have to install two sets of network cabling and a dedicated internal telephone system. And so on.
Why Skype and not just use iChat technology? Try using iChat through a corporate firewall. Skype tech seems much more reliable and scalable than iChat.
Carni
Originally posted by Seoul Survivor
DivX Networks -- the future of video distribution is digital as well.
Good idea! There was a news article recently about the possibility of DivX 6 being able to record HDTV quality/quantity of data on existing media with existing burners. It just could catch on...although Sony would not like the idea.
Originally posted by Carniphage
My suggestion is Skype.
So iTunes is on cell phones. And .mac synchs all over the place. I'm seeing pies in the sky.
So, if you had a .mac-capable cell phone, with Skype installed, you could be charged for internet time instead of the standard outlandish data-transmission rates that current service providers charge. And to make your phone calls, you use Aplpe's Skype or SkypeOut. SkypeOut's current 1st-world rates is at less than 2 cents a minute.
Internet telephony revolutionizing cell phones. Like I say, pie in the sky. Could happen.
--B
Originally posted by bergz
So iTunes is on cell phones. And .mac synchs all over the place. I'm seeing pies in the sky.
So, if you had a .mac-capable cell phone, with Skype installed, you could be charged for internet time instead of the standard outlandish data-transmission rates that current service providers charge. And to make your phone calls, you use Aplpe's Skype or SkypeOut. SkypeOut's current 1st-world rates is at less than 2 cents a minute.
Internet telephony revolutionizing cell phones. Like I say, pie in the sky. Could happen.
--B
NO. Not cell phones! No one mentioned cell phones. I am talking landlines - home phones and office phones. The cellphone business still has a couple of years to live.
Imagine an ethernet powered office phone. With a conventional design - a handset - an iPodesque lcd screen and dialler. Looks like a phone. Is an iChat/skype terminal. It's just like a telephone but better in every conceivable way.
Imagine an Airport express enabled home phone. With a conventional handset and design with an iPod esqe lcd screen and dialler. Suddenly you can make as many simultanous calls as you have phones.
Office telephone systems are incredibly expensive to buy and install.
Home phones are cheap - until you want a system that can support multiple lines and route calls to any phone. All of them have truly terrible interfaces.
There is an opportunity here - and while Skype are having a go - they need presence in the hardware space to make a real difference.
Carni
Making a splash in SIP is a good opportunity. A WiFi SIP phone would be a good product. All the SIP vendors are people you never heard of like Sipura, except for the ancient high-priced stuff from Cisco.
Another possibility would be a SAN vendor, for their backoffice push.
Frankly, however, acquisitions seldom work well; the whole is usually less than the sum of the parts.
Originally posted by TednDi
SAP
This could actually be fun. Could you imagine SAP that worked? SAP that didn't suck? An SAP client as a cocoa app?