Home > Michael Cowpland

Cowpland was born in Bexhill, Sussex, England and obtained a BSc. in engineering from Imperial College before moving to Canada in 1964. He completed his masters (1968) and Ph.D. (1973) at Carleton University, Ottawa.

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 TelecomBT Group plc (which trades as just BT and is commonly known by its former name, British Telecom is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. It is still the dominant telecommunications provider in the United Kingdom. History of BT A. Both Cowpland and Matthews left the company in 1984This page is about the year 1984. For other uses of 1984, see 1984 (disambiguation). 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday (link shows calendar). Events January January 1 Brunei becomes a fully independent state January 1 AT&T is broken up into 22 indepe amid disagreements with the owners.

Matthews went on to found Newbridge NetworksNewbridge Networks was a company founded by Canadian/Welsh entrepreneur Terry Matthews. It was founded in the mid-80s to create voice networking products after Matthews was forced out of his original company Mitel. It quickly became a market leader in thi 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 19891989 is a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). Events January January 7 Akihito becomes Emperor of Japan following the death of Hirohito. The Heisei period begins January 8 the Kegworth Air Disaster A British Midland Boeing 737 cra. 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 survived an investigation by the Ontario Securities Commission in 1999-2000 into allegations that he had used insider information to sell $20 million in Corel shares shortly before the company posted disappointing results.

With the company in a spiral of falling sales, Cowpland left Corel in August 2000. He currently heads Zim Technologies International, a wireless technology company he bought in 2001.

In 1992 he married his second wife, Marlen Cowpland. They live a famously lavish lifestyle in a 20,000 ft² house in Rockcliffe Park, Ottawa.