Inprise Corp and Corel Corp want to see Linux adopted by the commercial mainstream, and they’ve formed a research and development partnership to make sure that it happens. The companies want to develop Corel’s office productivity applications and Inprise’s application development tools for the open source operating system. Their alliance includes a seeding strategy whereby each company’s products will be marketed and distributed by the other. Right now, Corel needs all the strategic allies it can get. Its slender advantage in the Linux productivity market has been seriously undermined by Sun Microsystems Inc’s recent acquisition of Star Division Inc, maker of StarOffice, a rival to the Corel suite. Ironically, Sun seems to have bought Star to mount a direct assault on Microsoft Corp’s applications business. Corel may prove to be an accidental casualty of someone else’s war.
