"Gartner analyst Chris Le Tocq blames Cowpland for Corel's many missteps in the marketplace.
"All in all, it's been Cowpland's company, and maybe it's time for him to move on," he said.
Le Tocq added the company is a good acquisition candidate for a business that wants to take Corel's software and rent it over the Web. "The company that acquires Corel could use the expertise within Corel and use it to build Web-based services," he said."
"At least one analyst said Cowpland's biggest mistake was his decision to invest all the company's efforts on the emerging desktop Linux market.
"Corel essentially bought the farm with moving applications to Linux, and the Linux desktop marketplace has not appeared," Le Tocq said. "And who knows if it will ever get on stage. The Linux desktop market is a non-starter in the United States."
"Cowpland's resignation comes on the same day Sun Microsystems announced plans to open the source code of its StarOffice application suite.
... "That really put the capper on Corel's opportunity in the Linux marketplace," Le Tocq said. "That makes the market for Corel more competitive and a lot lower margin than it anticipated."
