Michael Cowpland (born April 23, 1943 in

Bexhill-on-Sea Bexhill-on-Sea (often shortened to Bexhill) is a seaside town and civil parish in the Rother District in the county of East Sussex in South East England. It is located along the Sussex Coast and between the towns of Hastings, England, Hastings ...

) is a British-born Canadian businessman. He is the founder and one-time president, chairman and CEO of

Corel Cascade Parent Limited, doing business as Alludo ( ), is a Canadian software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, specializing in graphics processing. Formerly called the Corel Corporation ( ; from the abbreviation "Cowpland Research Laborat ...

, a Canadian software company.

Career

Mitel

Cowpland worked for Bell Northern Research (later part of

Nortel Networks Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec in 1895 ...

), then

MicroSystems International Microsystems International Limited (MIL) was a telecommunications microelectronics company based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, founded in 1969. MIL was an early attempt to create a merchant semiconductor house by Nortel Networks (then Northern Elec ...

. In 1973, Cowpland and

Terry Matthews Sir Terence Hedley Matthews (born 6 June 1943) is a Welsh-Canadian business magnate, serial high-tech entrepreneur, and Wales' first billionaire. He was the richest man in Wales until 2012, when he was surpassed by Sir Michael Moritz. He ha ...

founded Mitel Corporation, a company that developed and sold electronic PBX systems. Initial success made both founders millionaires. Sales peaked at $250 million, but over-expansion and development problems saw the company bought by

British Telecom BT Group plc (formerly British Telecom) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-li ...

. Both Cowpland and Matthews left the company in 1984 amid disagreements with the owners.

Corel

Matthews went on to found

Newbridge Networks Newbridge Networks Corporation was founded by Welsh-Canadian entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews in Ottawa. It was founded in 1986 to create data and voice networking products after Matthews was forced out of his original company Mitel. According t ...

, while Cowpland launched Cowpland Research Laboratory (soon

) in Ottawa in 1985. At first, the company sold DTP workstations, but success did not arrive until the launch of the graphics software

CorelDRAW CorelDRAW is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Alludo (formerly Corel Corporation). It is also the name of the Corel graphics suite, which includes the bitmap-image editor Corel Photo-Paint as well as other graphics-related progr ...

in 1989. In 1996, he offered a challenge to

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

with a move into

productivity software Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital painting ...

, acquiring

WordPerfect WordPerfect (WP) is a word processing application, now owned by Alludo, with a long history on multiple personal computer platforms. At the height of its popularity in the 1980s and early 1990s, it was the market leader of word processors, disp ...

from

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

for $158 million. However this was unsuccessful as Microsoft managed to get many new computers loaded with

Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is a word processor program, word processing program developed by Microsoft. It was first released on October 25, 1983, under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platf ...

along with

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

. The company also made unsuccessful forays into

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

videoconferencing Videotelephony (also known as videoconferencing or video calling) is the use of audio signal, audio and video for simultaneous two-way communication. Today, videotelephony is widespread. There are many terms to refer to videotelephony. ''Vide ...

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

and other developments. He was investigated by the

Ontario Securities Commission The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC; French language, French: ''Commission des valeurs mobilières de l’Ontario'') is a regulation, regulatory agency which administers and enforces security (finance), securities legislation in the Canadian p ...

(OSC) in 1999–2000 regarding allegations that he had used insider information to sell $20 million in Corel shares at $8/share shortly before the company posted disappointing results. The two sides settled the case in 2003, with Cowpland agreeing to pay $575,000. Subsequent to Cowpland's alleged insider sale at $8, Corel shares hit a peak of $60/share around November 1999, during the height of the Linux boom when Corel's Desktop Linux was seen to be a potential rival to Microsoft Windows. Michael resigned as Corel's CEO in August 2000. After an unsuccessful attempt to buy

Borland Borland Software Corporation was a computing technology company founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad, and Philippe Kahn. Its main business was developing and selling software development and software deployment products. B ...

with a view to creating a critical mass for Linux, Cowpland left Corel in August 2000, and moved on to buy control of ZIM corporation, a database and mobile content company which is listed on the NASDAQ bulletin board (ZIMCF).

Personal life

He was married to his first wife Darlene until 1991 when they divorced. They have two daughters, Paula and Christine. In 1992, he married his second wife, Marlen Cowpland. The couple live in a $14-million 1,800-square-metre mansion in

Rockcliffe Park, Ontario Rockcliffe Park (French language, French: ''Parc Rockcliffe'') is a neighbourhood in Rideau-Rockcliffe Ward, close to the centre of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Established in 1864, organized as a Police village in 1908, and an independent village f ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowpland, Michael 1943 births Living people 20th-century Canadian businesspeople 20th-century English businesspeople 21st-century Canadian businesspeople 21st-century English businesspeople British technology chief executives British technology company founders Businesspeople from Ottawa Businesspeople in software Canadian chairpersons of corporations Canadian computer businesspeople Canadian technology chief executives Canadian technology company founders Carleton University alumni Corel English chief executives English company founders English emigrants to Canada Nortel employees People from Bexhill-on-Sea