Re: More final info on Word Perfect for the Apple II

[themaples@worldnet.att.net (Bruce Maples)]

>
>Dear Tom:
>
>I am told by some old friends who used to be at WordPerfect that the
>product was sold to a company called "Quality Software" in about 1991. I
>can't verify the accuracy of this information, but thought it might help!
>
>Good luck!
>
>Regards,
>
>Heather Boyer
>WPMAC PM
>Corel USA

This is the same information she gave me today via phone.

Here are the basic points, in a nutshell:

1.  Corel received a _ton_ of inquiries about this, both via phone and
e-mail.  (From the tone of voice Ms. Boyer used, I gather they were
quite unprepared for the level of interest.)

2.  They began an internal discussion about making it freeware.  They
eventually decided to do so, although there was some hesitation based
on the level of interest that had been shown.  ("Maybe this thing is
still viable commercially!?!")

3.  Having decided to reclassify it as freeware, they sent word over
to Legal to write up the necessary disclaimers.

4.  Legal came back and said that there was no record of them (Corel)
ever having owned either WP][ or WPGS, _and_ that no one had any idea
why they didn't own it and where it went.

5.  In asking around the company, Ms. Boyer came across some folks who
had worked for WordPerfect, in the Apple II area in fact, and one of
them said that he seemed to recall that the product was sold to a
company called Quality about 1991.

6.  Ms. Boyer said that since they had made the decision to reclassify
it, they were actually disappointed that they couldn't help out the ][
community.

BTW, the mention of Quality led me to think of Scantron Quality, of
course, and we got to talking about AppleWorks.  That led to
discussing Deja ][ (with which she was familiar, since she does Mac
support) and some talk of Beagle Brothers and Randy Brandt. At that
point, she said, "Well, I know about Beagle, because Mark Munz works
right next to me here!"

I told her she ought to get Mark to show her a properly upgraded GS,
since she had never seen one.  She said she would ask him, since the
first software she ever wrote was on the Apple ][.

So, thus ends the Corel part of this puzzle.  I am posting another
message about where to go from here.

Bruce


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