Corel buys Bryce and others apps.
Harry San
Corel Completes Strategic Acquisition of Professional
Graphics Products from MetaCreations
KPT®, KPT Vector Effects®, Bryce® and MetaCreations
PainterT
Extend Corel's Commitment to Graphic Artists
Ottawa, Canada and Carpinteria, California - April 10,
2000 - Corel Corporation (Nasdaq: CORL, TSE: COR) and
MetaCreations Corporation (Nasdaq: MCRE) today announced
that Corel has acquired several industry-leading
graphics software products and technologies from
MetaCreations.
Corel has purchased three leading product lines widely
used in the graphic arts community: MetaCreations
PainterT, the Natural-Media® painting program, Kai's
Power Tools® (KPT®) and KPT Vector Effects®, top-selling
plug-in applications for Adobe® Photoshop® and Adobe®
Illustrator®, and Bryce®, 3D landscape creation and
animation software. All products are compatible with
Macintosh® and Windows®. The addition of these
award-winning applications will complement CorelDRAW®
and strengthen Corel's presence in the Macintosh
graphics market.
"This is truly exciting news for us!" said Dr. Michael
Cowpland, president and chief executive officer of Corel
Corporation. "The acquisition fits our strategic vision
of offering world-class applications for multiple
platforms. Corel is committed to developing new versions
of the Painter, KPT and Bryce product lines and
supporting the existing customer base worldwide."
Corel has ambitious plans for these products, including
launching new versions for both the Web and retail
distribution channels throughout the year. It also plans
to broaden the range of localized versions worldwide.
Corel and MetaCreations are pleased to announce that the
MetaCreations Painter 6.0.3 patch will soon be made
available to registered users at
http://www.metacreations.com/products/painter6/patches.
"Corel is an ideal company to acquire these
award-winning products with its rich history of valuing
graphic artists through innovation, graphics software
products and the Corel World Design Contest," said Mark
Zimmer, the creator of MetaCreations Painter. "This
agreement also supports MetaCreations' strategy to focus
exclusively on Web-based marketing visualization
solutions."
To ensure a smooth transition and continued development
of MetaCreations Painter, Corel has contracted Mark
Zimmer, Tom Hedges and John Derry, the creators of
MetaCreations Painter. Corel also plans to contract
additional MetaCreations engineers to assist in the
development of the MetaCreations Painter, KPT and Bryce
product lines.
MetaCreations Painter, KPT and Bryce have each won
impressive industry awards and praise: MetaCreations
Painter 6 was named 1999 Macworld Editor's Choice Award
for Best Graphics Software; KPT was rated "Freakin'
Awesome" (top rating) by MacAddict Magazine in June
1999; and Bryce 4 rated 5 out of 5 by Micro Publishing
News in June 1999 and 4.5 out of 5 by MacHome Journal in
July 1999.
MetaCreations will continue to handle customer service
for the MetaCreations Painter, KPT and Bryce family of
products until June 30, 2000, after which time Corel
will provide full customer support.
In addition, MetaCreations will provide technical
support until May 19, 2000, and will continue to respond
to all technical support inquiries until June 30, 2000,
from customers with whom it has annual support
agreements. Corel will handle technical support starting
May 20, 2000, and respond to customers with annual
support agreements with MetaCreations effective July 1.
MetaCreations, based in California, sold the
professional graphics software to Corel following a
decision, announced last December, to restructure its
business and focus solely on e-commerce visualization
solutions for the Web. MetaCreations' e-commerce
visualization business is centered on the company's
industry-leading, patented MetaStreamT technology,
specifically for the streaming and display of
interactive 3D virtual product presentation over the
Web. While the company decided to divest its graphics
applications, it has continued to develop and support
new versions of the products. MetaCreations expects to
make additional announcements later this week regarding
the divestiture of the remaining pre-packaged graphics
software applications.
The acquisition by Corel includes the following
products: MetaCreations Painter, MetaCreations Painter
Classic, MetaCreations Painter 3D, Art Dabbler, KPT,
KPT-X, Vector Effects and Bryce. Corel has also agreed
to honor support and upgrade privileges to registered
owners of Bryce 4, KPT 5, KPT 6, KPT Vector Effects and
MetaCreations Painter 6, subject to proof of purchase
and within applicable time limits.
--
H@rry S@n
