(Alludo, Ottawa, Ontario) A leading Canadian software company, founded in 1985 by Dr. Michael Cowpland. Formerly the Corel Corporation, the name was changed to Alludo in late 2022.
For many years, the company was widely known for its award-winning CorelDRAW graphics programs for Windows, Mac and Unix. Alludo offers a variety of business programs, including application suites that include WordPerfect. In 1996, Corel acquired the WordPerfect family of software from Novell. In the late 1990s, it 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 offered two sophisticated drawing programs: CorelDRAW for small business applications, and Corel DESIGNER for the technical illustrator. In 2013, DESIGNER was folded into the CorelDRAW suite.
Dr. Michael C. J. Cowpland
Cowpland founded Corel in 1985 and spent 15 years as CEO and president. He had founded Mitel Corporation in 1973, and subsequent to Corel, became CEO of biomedical research ZIM Corporation. (Image courtesy of Corel Corporation.)