Corel Corp warned Wednesday that it will post a loss of about $0.24 per share for its first quarter, ended February 28. The news comes as a major disappointment for the Canadian company, which had only clawed its way back into the black last quarter after a long string of losses and was expected to post net income of $0.03. Corel says that, based on a preliminary analysis, it will report revenues of $40.3m, compared to $45.4m in the year- ago quarter, in which it lost $0.36 per share.
Corel had warned in January that the first quarter could prove challenging, due to the concurrent end of the life cycle of two of its flagship products, WordPerfect and CorelDraw. Neither product has seen a new release in five quarters and both are set to launch in the current quarter. The company adds that the first quarter is traditionally its weakest. Corel maintains, however, that the problem will be restricted to the first quarter and expects the rest of the year to be vastly improved.
