The implementation of WordPerfect Office 2000 at Borden & Elliott allowed Corel to do a little testing of its own.
In addition to the evaluation and implementation of WordPerfect, the firm acted as a guinea pig for Corel to test their new premium support services in a real-world environment.
Corel’s highest level of support, Premium Service is a fee-based service designed for medium- to large-sized enterprises that want to establish a direct relationship with Corel, and for organizations that employ dedicated support professionals or have centralized technical management.
Premium service is available for the WordPerfect line of products in four levels: Premium Elite, Premium Plus, Premium Standard, Premium Lite and Premium Ultra Lite.
Rob Berndt, manager of premium services at Corel Corp. in Ottawa, said both parties realized there was a mutually-beneficial opportunity at Borden & Elliot. For Corel’s part, “some of the things we found ourselves working hard on was the customized macros, templates and toolbars…that the client was used to having and we had to replicate those as well as we could into the software,” he said.
Berndt said the integration with other software “went extremely well” and far better than expected.
“I think the only surprise we got out of the whole thing was the amount of training that was required to help the users understand the new interface and relate that to the interface they were used to,” Berndt said, adding there is “quite a dramatic changeover” between Version 6.1 and the new suite.
The project gave Corel technicians, who went on site at Borden & Elliott to do the installation for the pilot group, real life situations and good experience, explained Michelle Olsthoorn, service account manager with the Premium Service Department at Corel.
The issues that arose during that time, namely compatibility with some of the third-party integrators, including Nereosoft Inc. who creates macros and templates, gave the group assistance in planning for the firm-wide rollout, she said.