Corel Woos VARs With WordPerfect Office Rebates

Qualified VARs can earn rebates of up to 10 percent on sales of CorelDraw Graphics Suite 12 and WordPerfect Office 12, the company said Tuesday.

WordPerfect Office 12 was released late last month and includes the venerable WordPerfect and Quattro Pro applications along with Presentations software.

To date, Ottawa-based Corel has concentrated on retailers, large-account resellers and direct-mail channels and has crafted a few high-profile OEM bundling deals. A spokeswoman said the company needs to spend more time and energy on developing its VAR channel.

Registered VARs can get rebates of up to 7 percent on sales of qualifying software made between May 1 and Nov. 30, 2004. An additional 3 percent can be earned on purchases made between May 31 and Aug. 31 if the VAR signs up for the program before May 31.

"This is the first time we've had such an aggressive program," said Gisele Sanchez, director of channel sales at Corel. The rebates apply to all WordPerfect Office and CorelDraw SKUs.

The average selling price for the basic bundle of WordPerfect, Quattro Pro and Presentations is $149. The suggested retail price of WordPerfect Office 12 Standard Edition is $299.99 for the full version, $149.99 for the upgrade and $99.99 for the Student and Teacher Edition, available starting in June. The Professional version, which adds Paradox, is offered as a license-only media pack for a suggested retail price of $349 or $199.99 as an upgrade.

All software is sourced through distribution. Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Synnex and D&H Distributing carry the Corel lineup.

Corel is fighting an uphill battle against the Microsoft Office juggernaut. Last year it signed some high-profile hardware OEM partners, putting WordPerfect on select Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Gateway systems. The Dell deal continues, and Corel is in continuing talks with other hardware vendors, the spokeswoman said.