Yeah - well said! :)

WordPerfect (WP) has always been a superior tool compared to Microsoft Word (MSW).  I have to use MSW where I work for some tasks (by order!) but for the vast majority of what I do (and it's not just letters!), I use WP.

The entry into the Windows arena was slow, late and badly implemented (that was pre-Corel, of course!) and I am inclined to think a lot of damage was done to the WP market then.  The product itself made a thorough recovery in the hands of Corel and remains the beter product in terms of;

  design logic (can anyone tell me why [Page setup] in MSW comes under [File] instead of [Format]?),

  usability & control (ever tried editting a MSW document that has bullet points, or editting a table?)

  funcionality --  main and context menus much more logical and [Reveal Codes] is an essential for any word processor ... but is only found in WP.

  quality -- WP is clearly designed for the user rather than for the market.

I do have a criticism, though. I feel that WP marketting in the UK is weak.  The vast majority have either never heard of WP or think it ceased after the famous blue screen of v5.2.  The rest assume MSW must be the best because, "well, everyone else uses it, don't they?"  Local councils use MSW, therefore schools use it, therefore students etc.

The education market needs educating!

My role includes technical support for others in the office and whenever they have a problem with MSW (a frequent occurrence) they know that at some point I will say 'WP doesn't have that problem'.  They are all now beyond getting irritated by that statement because they have seen it to be true!

Perhaps a more agressive pricing structure for councils and schools might expand the market share. I wonder whether, if the Linux version was revived/refined & a Mac version produced, maybe those who famously think less highly of Microsoft products will help to make WP better known?  And is it not worth producing a version for 'Home & Student' that undercuts 'the opposition'?

Perhaps just give WP away to students, or for a ridiculous price of like $5.  Unless you derive a large profit from that group, you aren't losing much, and it may actually increase sales.

It would also be nice to have online storage of documents.  I know this is already available from many sources, but none with deep integration of word perfect.  

So perhaps you get automatic versioning, the ability to view documents from any browser, the ability to share documents with other email addresses, etc.  Perhaps there is a free version with a small amount of storage.  Perhaps if you prepay for storage for a year you get WP for free.  You could sell a version to law firms where their documents are shared within an office, etc.  Some interesting possibilities.

Perfectly said Jay! I couldn't agree more!

I agree wholeheartedly with the comments above!!

I have been a WordPerfect owner & user since 4.0/4.1/4.2. I've been a proponent/owner/user of each version through X3 on most every platform (Unix/Linux, Dos, Win, mac, AtariST, DG, etc -- even WPShell -- ).

I remember when WordPerfect Corporation was world renowned for its Customer Service. I did work for WP Corp, then Novell as a contractor in those days.

I have also worked as an integrator, integrating WordPerfect with other applications to generate custom reports, Mail-Merges, etc. including DDE & OLE. PerfectScript was an excellent tool for this, and for most tasks a far superior tool to vba.

I am still convinced that WordPerfect is far and away the best word processor/document processor available anywhere (I know Quark users are agasp, but they've lived in such a small part of the real world...)  

I only hope that Corel quits its half-hearted attitude towards WordPerfect and quit trying to make WordPerfect as lame as msword!!

Release a Linux Version!!! The Linux market is full of people wanting the power & ease of use that only WordPerfect can offer!!! I come across people wanting this every day!!!  It would not be a very difficult migration as most of the code is written in C/C++ already. Please give the Linux market a real try!! (Don't even consider 8 a trial as that was an old version -- compared to its windows counterpart -- when it was released, and then never supported/marketed/anything.)

Perhaps I should start a developer community to create an Open-Source WordPerfect clone...