Founded in 1979 as Satellite Software International by Alan Ashton, Bruce Bastian and Don Owens. In 1980, W. E. Pete Peterson, Bastian's brother-in-law, joined the Utah-based company as office manager and later became executive vice president.

Its first product was a word processor for the Data General minicomputer. In 1982, WordPerfect was introduced for the IBM PC. At the time, WordStar was number one, and there were other word processors available for the PC. Yet, over time, WordPerfect outsold them all and the company was later renamed WordPerfect Corporation. In 1994, the company was acquired by Novell and then by Corel in 1996.

For an interesting inside story by Pete Peterson on how the company got started and grew into a software giant without external financing, read his book, "AlmostPerfect," originally published by Prima Publishing in 1994 and later available online at http://www.fitnesoft.com/AlmostPerfect.