Wordperfect Corp has announced that its latest word processing packages, Wordperfect 6.0 for MS-DOS and Wordperfect 5.2 for Windows are now available in the English language version from its exclusive distributor in the Czech and Slovak Republics, DCC spol sro. Wordperfect regional director Michael Freebairn said that a Czech language version of 5.2 for Windows should be released within the next couple of months. Freebairn accepted that the company was taking a slight risk in localising its products using Czech programmers in the republic, as Czech law dictates that copyright for changes made to the original versions reside with the programmers rather than their employers and cannot be transferred. However, he said international recognition of Wordperfect’s copyright was such that its rights were not likely to be challenged. The projected release date for the Czech version of 5.2 for Windows is another indication that the lag between release dates of new packages in the US and the appearance of local language versions in Central and Eastern Europe is closing dramatically. Freebairn says the delay used to be around eight months in the case of Wordperfect but could now be brought down to four weeks – in part due to the recognition of the need to develop packages in a modular form in the first place to enable necessary changes to be made. Wordperfect’s competition in the Czech and Slovak markets is much as it is globally, according to Freebairn, with the exception of the presence of a successful home-grown player in the MS-DOS word processing market in the form of Software 602. This company once a government-owned computer club numbered 602 on a roster of 1,500 youth organisations – succeeded in capturing the lion’s share of the S-DOS market two years ago with its less functional but highly popular Text602 package while western vendors were struggling to translate their manuals. Borland International Inc, the US database and spreadsheet firm which Wordperfect has a ‘high-level marketing agreement’, and which also distributes through DCC, is set to follow suit in due course. Freebairn argued that both developments would help to increase its market share and predicted that even if Wordperfect did then sign up another distributor or two DCC would be unlikely to suffer from the restructuring.
