StockHouse.ca: Corel’s Cowpland Confident Linux Will Catch Windows By 2004 [Interview]

[ Thanks to Godi for this link.
]

“In an exclusive interview with StockHouse, Corel CEO Michael
Cowpland touched on a wide range of topics, from the planned launch
of 18 new Linux-based products by the end of the year, to the most
recent lawsuit, which claims among other things that Corel “aided
and abetted the breach of fiduciary duty,” in its planned merger
with Inprise [INPR].”

“StockHouse: Tell me about the latest PC Data
numbers. You have nearly a 20% share in February, which is up from
over 8% in November of last year.

Cowpland: Considering that we’re kind of
creating the desktop for Linux from scratch because up to now,
people have said it was purely a server-based OS and the market
didn’t exist with that stuff, I think we’ve begun to prove that
wrong and now we’re beginning to develop the market for the
desktop. And in some ways we were pleasantly surprised because
until the applications are there we thought this would just get a
few enthusiasts going, but now we are shipping the WordPerfect
Office for Linux.”

“StockHouse: What message came out of Linux
Expo in Montreal?

Cowpland: Well, it’s exciting to see all the
embedded devices emerging. There is now, I think, a real-time Linux
and some very strong embedded Linux versions as well as all these
devices that are coming out. We’re very excited from our own point
of view with the launch of all these new Linux appliances. In fact,
we’re forecasting that Linux devices will be on par with
Windows within 5 years in terms of units. Basically, we’re
forecasting around a 400 million-install base of Windows by 2004
versus about 400 million Linux, mainly on the appliance
side.”

Complete
Story