Will Snapfire Catch On?
Corel has been highly promoting their new digital imaging platform named "Alta". At first, there weren't a lot of details on the project. Just last week Corel finally released the first piece of the Alta puzzle with an image management and editing tool called Corel Snapfire. Yawn.
Sorry, but this first tool left me really unimpressed. The first competitor that came to mind was Google Picasa. That means Corelis competing with high-quality, free software. That means in order to be taken seriously by the masses, they'll have to provide functionality that isn't found elsewhere.
One easy way to stand out from other programs would be to support Corel's various proprietary formats. CorelDRAW's CDR files, Corel PHOTO-PAINT's CPT files, Paint Shop Pro's pspimage files and many more. This can't be too difficult since Corel created the formats, right? You guessed it already, they aren't supported. How about RAW files? Given that Corel doesn't have a good solution for RAW processing, it is no surprise they aren't properly supported either.
Snapfire Plus does add extra features to create some attractive slideshows. Then again, there are plenty of other programs that do this for little or no cost. Again, this would be more useful if I could use Corel's proprietary formats. But since I can't, there are other titles like Photodex's ProShow products or Tivity's Pixtivity that I'd much rather use.
Corel has already said that one strategy they have is to sell various other features to add-in to Snapfire Plus. Each of these features will have a small cost. Of course they only work in Snapfire Plus which already has a base cost of $39.95. The only way these extra features will sell is if people buy the base product. I can't think of any reason to buy it.
Every time I see a new product like this launched, I just get really frustrated. It tells me that time and money was spent when it could have just as easily been spent on something related to CorelDRAW or to developing Corel Ventura. If Corel tries to compete with Web-savvy companies who know how to monetize "free" software, they are going to lose every time.
Sorry, but this first tool left me really unimpressed. The first competitor that came to mind was Google Picasa. That means Corelis competing with high-quality, free software. That means in order to be taken seriously by the masses, they'll have to provide functionality that isn't found elsewhere.
One easy way to stand out from other programs would be to support Corel's various proprietary formats. CorelDRAW's CDR files, Corel PHOTO-PAINT's CPT files, Paint Shop Pro's pspimage files and many more. This can't be too difficult since Corel created the formats, right? You guessed it already, they aren't supported. How about RAW files? Given that Corel doesn't have a good solution for RAW processing, it is no surprise they aren't properly supported either.
Snapfire Plus does add extra features to create some attractive slideshows. Then again, there are plenty of other programs that do this for little or no cost. Again, this would be more useful if I could use Corel's proprietary formats. But since I can't, there are other titles like Photodex's ProShow products or Tivity's Pixtivity that I'd much rather use.
Corel has already said that one strategy they have is to sell various other features to add-in to Snapfire Plus. Each of these features will have a small cost. Of course they only work in Snapfire Plus which already has a base cost of $39.95. The only way these extra features will sell is if people buy the base product. I can't think of any reason to buy it.
Every time I see a new product like this launched, I just get really frustrated. It tells me that time and money was spent when it could have just as easily been spent on something related to CorelDRAW or to developing Corel Ventura. If Corel tries to compete with Web-savvy companies who know how to monetize "free" software, they are going to lose every time.
posted by Foster D. Coburn III at
8:00 PM
1 Comments:
You are right on, hear, hear!!!!
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