Corel takes on PageMill, FrontPage
Corel took its first big step into the Internet market today when it unveiled the CorelWeb.Designer HTML editor, an application that the company intends to compete with Adobe Systems' PageMill and Microsoft's recently acquired FrontPage.
Like PageMill and FrontPage, CorelWeb.Designer is made to help Web designers and novice users alike to create Web pages from scratch, the company said. Corel, however, is billing its entry into the HTML editing market as the "first complete HTML authoring toolkit."
The package comes bundled with CorelWeb.Gallery, a collection of clip-art images and screen elements like buttons and arrows that can be incorporated into Web pages, and CorelWeb.Transit, a tool used for converting word processing documents into HTML format.
The kit will sell for $99 when it ships in April for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Windows NT. A Mac version is scheduled to follow by the fall, a company spokesperson said.
CorelWeb.Designer itself provides 120 templates for Web pages, includes support for Java applets and client-side image mapping, and can automatically translate BMP files into GIF or JPEG files.
The tool is the first high-profile example of Corel's new Internet strategy, which was launched in January when the company acquired WordPerfect and its PerfectOffice suite of office applications. The plan is to revamp the company's graphics lineup to reflect the booming interest in Web page design.
The company last month released CorelWeb.Data, a tool for publishing database tables in HTML format, but CorelWeb.Designer is the first introduction of a complete Web design application.
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