In a move to offer apps on tap for the masses, Corel Corporation yesterday signed a licensing agreement with much-watched CMeRun Corporation.
This was a foreseen move as CMeRun announced when it launched in February that it was expecting to offer Corel.
As part of the agreement, CMeRun will host and deliver WordPerfect Office 2000, CorelDRAW 9, CorelDRAW Office Edition, Corel Print Office 2000, Corel Custom Photo, and Corel Print House Magic, in addition to thousands of clip art and Web images to consumers with Internet access.
CMeRun’s plan is to be a wholesaler, so the company needs to sign partners who will deliver the applications to customers. In addition to Corel, who is C Me Run looking to sign as delivery partners?
ASP Industry Consortium executive Paula Hunter, vice president of marketing, CMeRun, told ASP-News the company is in the process of signing other partners. “We will be releasing more applications over the next three or four weeks.”
While Hunter confirmed that CMeRun has not put out any goals in terms of quantity of applications, they feel Corel was a strong partner to begin the deals with.
“Corel has been a leader in establishing consumer-orientated licensing for ASPs,” Hunter said. “Corel is a very strong brand name and brand name applications are the way to offer the highest quality and best set of features.”
Corel also has the existing licenses and terms available today that CMeRun would need.
While some might consider Corel late to the ASP party, Lino Catana, business development manager, told ASP-News he does not view this announcement as Corel’s late entrance to the ASP Market, claiming to have a longer history in the market.
Corel joined the ASP Industry Consortium in November 1999. “We partnered with FutureLink in November to offer WordPerfect 2000 over the Web and participated in an ASP roundtable in December,” he said.
From Corel’s point of view, its licensing agreement with C Me Run will take Corel to the forefront of the consumer ASP market. “CMeRun is a leader in the ASP and consumer market on the ASP side,” Catana said. “There are not many ASPs providing these services to ISPs and telcos like CMeRun.”
Corel, like CMeRun, told ASP-News they are in the midst of signing others ASPs. “We will be announcing other ASP relationships at the T1 and T2 levels,” Catana said.
Catana pointed out to ASP-News the company’s exact stand in the ASP market. “Corel is not an ASP nor does it have any interest in becoming one,” he said. “ISVs have to understand what the ASPs want in an agreement and that is where we come in.”
In other news, Hunter told ASP-News that based on the talk at ISP/ASPCON, the ASP market offers a tremendous potential for the ISPs, and C Me Run will be ready when the time arises.
“CMeRun will empower all the ISPs into becoming ASPs,” Hunter said. ” I think we will see some of the enterprise ASPs partnering with ISPs and CMeRun has the opportunity to generate significant volume and growth, as the consumer market will provide that boost.”
