Corel Simplifies Licensing To Entice Schools

Education customers can now buy any one of Corel's applications on a per-user basis. Institutions with 15,000 to 30,000 students would pay as little as 83 cents per student, while those with 1,000 to 4,999 students would pay as little as $1.25 per student, for example. Corel's products include WordPerfect Office, CorelDraw and Paint Shop.

Executives of the Ottawa-based company said the simplified licensing is designed to entice education customers to select Corel products over those from Microsoft and Adobe Systems, which typically come with much more complicated licensing terms.

"It makes it a lot easier to have a plug-and-play transaction," said David Leon, institutional sales manager at Academic Superstore, a reseller based in Austin, Texas. "This gives customers more flexibility, and the price points are really attractive."

The Corel program also pro-vides free training seminars and other curricula and training resources. What's more, faculty and staff receive take-home rights to the applications, as do students when the applications are under maintenance.