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Michael Cowpland (born April 23, 1943) is a Canadian entrepreneur, businessman, and the founder and one-time president, chairman and CEO of Corel, a Canadian software company.
Early life
Cowpland was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England and obtained a BSc. in engineering from Imperial College London before moving to Canada in 1964. He completed his masters (1968) and Ph.D. (1973) at Carleton University, Ottawa.
Mitel
He worked for Bell Northern Research (later part of Nortel Networks) and then MicroSystems International. In 1973, Cowpland and Terry Matthews founded Mitel Networks, 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. Both Cowpland and Matthews left the company in 1984 amid disagreements with the owners.
Corel
Matthews went on to found Newbridge Networks while Cowpland launched Cowpland Research Laboratory (soon Corel) in Ottawa in 1985. At first, the company sold DTP workstations, but success did not arrive until the launch of the graphics software CorelDRAW in 1989.
In 1996, he offered a challenge to Microsoft with a move into productivity software, acquiring WordPerfect from Novell for $158 million. The company also made unsuccessful forays into CAD, videoconferencing, Java, Linux and other developments.
He was investigated by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in 1999-2000 into allegations that he had used insider information to sell $20 million in Corel shares at $8/share shortly before the company posted disappointing results. This issue was settled in 2003 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 version of Desktop Linux was seen to be a potential rival to Microsoft Windows.
After an unsuccessful attempt to buy Borland 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).