Corel

(Corel Corporation, Ottawa, Ontario, www.corel.com) A leading Canadian software company, founded in 1985 by Dr. Michael Cowpland. For many years, it has been widely known for its award-winning CorelDRAW graphics programs for Windows, Mac and Unix. Corel offers a variety of business programs, including application suites that include WordPerfect and Quattro Pro. In 1996, it acquired the WordPerfect family of software from Novell. In the late 1990s, Corel began to invest in the Linux movement, developing a version of the OS and porting CorelDRAW and WordPerfect to the platform, but later sold the OS to another company.

With the acquisition of Micrografx in 2001, Corel offers two sophisticated drawing programs: CorelDRAW for small business applications, and Corel DESIGNER for the technical illustrator. In that same year, Corel also acquired SoftQuad, which boosts its offerings in the XML publishing arena.

Dr. Michael C. J. Cowpland

Cowpland founded Corel in 1985 and spent 15 years as its CEO and president. Previous to Corel, he founded Mitel Corporation in 1973, and subsequent to Corel, became CEO of ZIM Corporation (www.zim.biz). (Image courtesy of Corel Corporation.)