Michael Cowpland Founder of Corel
Michael Cowpland Founder of Corel

Biography of Michael Cowpland

Early Life

Michael Cowpland founder of Corel Corporation was born in Bexhill, Sussex on 23rd April, 1943. He did his BSc. from Imperial College in engineering department. After doing graduation he migrated in 1964 to Canada and done his Masters in same field in 1968 and also Ph.D. in 1973 from Carleton University, Ottawa.

Working Career

His first job was at Bell Northern Research in Nortel Networks. After that job he worked with Micro Systems International. But his era of working as a subordinate was over and in 1973, with the partnership of one of his friends Terry Matthews, established a company with the name Mitel Networks. That company manufactured and sold electronic PBX Systems.

Formation of this company gave them a lot of popularity and success, within short span of time both of these became millionaires. Company’s sales were at the peak and mounted up to 250 million dollars. After peak, company faced over-developmental and expansionary problems, because of these problems it was sold to British Telecom Company. He and his friend Matthews both left the company due to disagreements among new owners and these two. They left the Company in 1984.

Founder of Corel

After leaving the Mitel networks, both of these friends separately started their businesses. Matthews opened a new networking company with the name Newbridge Networks. Cowpland went on to launch a research laboratory in Ottawa. In 1985, he established Cowpland Research Laboratory.

Initially this company sold workstations working on DTP. But these workstations didn’t give him and his company as much income and popularity. His company’s success arrived when he launched his first and best graphics software in 1989 with the name CorelDraw. This software led him to change the domain of his company from networking industry to software producing industry.

Challenge to Microsoft

In 1996, he challenged his rival company Microsoft for producing quality software. To complete this challenge he bought software WordPerfect from Novell Company for 158 million dollars. This software didn’t give him desired results because Microsoft launched some of its best productivity software which included Microsoft Word and Windows. This company also made some unsuccessful products in CAD, Java, videoconferencing, Linux, and other projects.

So that challenge was complete disaster for him and his company.

Corel Corporation

Corel Corporation is a software company founded in Canada. It’s headquarter is in Ottawa, Ontario. It was initially started as a research laboratory and its name Corel is also taken from initials of its previous name “Cowpland Research Laboratory”. This company is specialized in producing software in the field of graphics and pictorial sort of things. Its best production was also graphics software with the name CorelDraw. This company also acquired some of the software from other companies. These products include Paint Shop Pro, which was acquired from Jasc Software, WordPerfect product of Novell, and some products of Ulead Systems.

Private Life

Besides professional life he married to Darlene, she was his first wife. They divorced in 1991. From his first wife he has two daughters. He married again in 1992 with Marlen Cowpland. Now this couple is having a house of $14 million, spread on to 1800 square-meter.