The City by the Bay will provide the backdrop for WordPerfect Wednesday as the company unveils the course it has charted for the future.
Nearly 150 media, industry and client representatives are expected to join WordPerfect's top executives for a sail around San Francisco Bay to learn more about the company's future.WordPerfect held a similar press conference aboard a yacht in New York Harbor that attracted 250 people Tuesday.
Speculation about what WordPerfect would announce at the twin meetings ran rampant in the computer industry during the past several weeks. Some industry watchers guessed the software company would reveal plans to go public or a major alliance or merger with another computer company.
The guesses hit and missed. WordPerfect did not announce plans to go public. But it did announce acquisition of MagicSoft Inc., a small company that produces telecommunications software.
WordPerfect also disclosed plans to join Novell in product development and support efforts. In addition, WordPerfect introduced a new support program for large organizations.
In the computer world partnerships and acquisitions are everyday news. It's not the content of WordPerfect's announcements that's startling; it's the moves themselves that are news.
"WordPerfect has been very singularly focused on word processing," said T.C. Doyle, a senior editor for Computer Reseller News. "This shows the company is looking beyond Provo/Orem for innovation and trying to play a much more global game.
"WordPerfect is joining the rest of the universe of software and hardware companies."
MagicSoft, located in Lombard, Ill., started in 1985 and has 12 employees. The company produces data and fax communications packages. WordPerfect began working with MagicSoft more than a year ago to create a communications package for WordPerfect Works.
"We wanted a communications package that would have the same look and feel of other Word-Perfect products," said Stewart Nelson, WordPerfect's vice president of software development. "The developers at MagicSoft produced a product that far exceeded our expectations."
WordPerfect plans to relocate some of MagicSoft's employees to Orem.
"We're really excited by the move," said Donavon Kuhn, MagicSoft co-founder and president. "We've been wanting to do retail but haven't had the manpower. With WordPerfect behind us we'll really be able to do some retail."
The alliance between Novell and WordPerfect links two companies at the tops of their fields with a common goal of ensuring compatibility between their products.
WordPerfect will join Novell's Technical Support Alliance, an organization of leading hardware and software manufacturers dedicated to ensuring that their products work harmoniously with Novell's Netware. That's a major sign of WordPerfect's new commitment to openness; the word-processing company has the industry's most touted customer support program.
The two companies also plan to establish closer ties between their technology groups.