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Lotus Software
Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was sold to India's HCL Technologies in 2018.
Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet application, the first feature-heavy, user-friendly, reliable, and WYSIWYG-enabled product to become widely available in the early days of the IBM PC, when there was no graphical user interface. Much later, in conjunction with Ray Ozzie's Iris Associates, Lotus also released a groupware and email system, Lotus Notes. IBM purchased the company in 1995 for US$3.5 billion (equivalent to $6.6 billion in 2024), primarily to acquire Lotus Notes and to establish a presence in the increasingly important client–server computing segment, which was rapidly making host-based products such as IBM OfficeVision obsolete.
On December 6, 2018, IBM announced the sale of Lotus Software/Domino to HCL for US$1.8 billion (equivalent to $2.2 billion in 2024).
Lotus was founded in 1982 by partners Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs with backing from Ben Rosen. By the end of that year the company offered Executive Briefing System, presentation software for the Apple II, written by Kapor and Todd Agulnick. Kapor founded Lotus after leaving his post as head of development at VisiCorp, the distributors of the VisiCalc spreadsheet, and selling all his rights to VisiPlot and VisiTrend to VisiCorp.
Shortly after Kapor left VisiCorp, he and Sachs produced an integrated spreadsheet and graphics program. Even though IBM and VisiCorp had a collaboration agreement whereby VisiCalc was being shipped simultaneously with the PC, Lotus had a superior product. Lotus released Lotus 1-2-3 on January 26, 1983. The name referred to the three ways the product could be used, as a spreadsheet, graphing tool, and database manager. The last two functions were less often used in practice, but 1-2-3 was the most powerful spreadsheet program available.
Lotus was almost immediately successful, becoming the world's third largest microcomputer software company in 1983 with $53 million in sales in its first year, compared to its business plan forecast of $1 million in sales. In 1982, Jim Manzi — a graduate of Colgate University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy — came to Lotus as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and became an employee four months later. In October 1984, he was named president, and in April 1986, he was appointed CEO, succeeding Kapor. In July of that same year, he also became chairman of the board. Manzi remained at the head of Lotus until 1995.[citation needed]
As the popularity of the personal computer grew, Lotus quickly came to dominate the spreadsheet market. Lotus introduced other office products such as Ray Ozzie's Symphony in 1984 and the Jazz office suite for the Apple Macintosh computer in 1985. Jazz did very poorly in the market (in Guy Kawasaki's book The Macintosh Way, Lotus Jazz was described as being so bad, "even the people who pirated it returned it"). Also in 1985, Lotus bought Software Arts and discontinued its VisiCalc program.
By that year Forrester Research considered Lotus, Ashton-Tate, Microsoft, and Borland the "Big Four" of personal computer software. Softletter estimated that in 1986 the "Big Three" of Lotus (9%, more than $275 million), Microsoft (8%), and Ashton-Tate (6%) together had 23% of total revenue of the top 100 microcomputer software companies. Of the 15 million Americans who used a personal computer in their job, a quarter used 1-2-3. Computer Intelligence estimated in 1987 that Lotus had 85% of the Fortune 1000 PC financial analysis, with Microsoft second at 6%. It also estimated a 20% share of the presentation software market, second to Ashton-Tate and ahead of Microsoft's 6%. A 1987 Computerworld survey gave Lotus a B grade for technology and product support, B+ for management, C+ for customer relations, and B− for marketing. Customers said that the company was slow to upgrade products, documentation and seminars were good but telephone support was poor, management had succeeded in defeating many competitors, customer relations had improved but copy protection was still the top complaint, and Jazz's failure showed that Lotus's ability to market products other than 1-2-3 and Symphony was unknown.
Lotus Software
Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was sold to India's HCL Technologies in 2018.
Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet application, the first feature-heavy, user-friendly, reliable, and WYSIWYG-enabled product to become widely available in the early days of the IBM PC, when there was no graphical user interface. Much later, in conjunction with Ray Ozzie's Iris Associates, Lotus also released a groupware and email system, Lotus Notes. IBM purchased the company in 1995 for US$3.5 billion (equivalent to $6.6 billion in 2024), primarily to acquire Lotus Notes and to establish a presence in the increasingly important client–server computing segment, which was rapidly making host-based products such as IBM OfficeVision obsolete.
On December 6, 2018, IBM announced the sale of Lotus Software/Domino to HCL for US$1.8 billion (equivalent to $2.2 billion in 2024).
Lotus was founded in 1982 by partners Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs with backing from Ben Rosen. By the end of that year the company offered Executive Briefing System, presentation software for the Apple II, written by Kapor and Todd Agulnick. Kapor founded Lotus after leaving his post as head of development at VisiCorp, the distributors of the VisiCalc spreadsheet, and selling all his rights to VisiPlot and VisiTrend to VisiCorp.
Shortly after Kapor left VisiCorp, he and Sachs produced an integrated spreadsheet and graphics program. Even though IBM and VisiCorp had a collaboration agreement whereby VisiCalc was being shipped simultaneously with the PC, Lotus had a superior product. Lotus released Lotus 1-2-3 on January 26, 1983. The name referred to the three ways the product could be used, as a spreadsheet, graphing tool, and database manager. The last two functions were less often used in practice, but 1-2-3 was the most powerful spreadsheet program available.
Lotus was almost immediately successful, becoming the world's third largest microcomputer software company in 1983 with $53 million in sales in its first year, compared to its business plan forecast of $1 million in sales. In 1982, Jim Manzi — a graduate of Colgate University and The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy — came to Lotus as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and became an employee four months later. In October 1984, he was named president, and in April 1986, he was appointed CEO, succeeding Kapor. In July of that same year, he also became chairman of the board. Manzi remained at the head of Lotus until 1995.[citation needed]
As the popularity of the personal computer grew, Lotus quickly came to dominate the spreadsheet market. Lotus introduced other office products such as Ray Ozzie's Symphony in 1984 and the Jazz office suite for the Apple Macintosh computer in 1985. Jazz did very poorly in the market (in Guy Kawasaki's book The Macintosh Way, Lotus Jazz was described as being so bad, "even the people who pirated it returned it"). Also in 1985, Lotus bought Software Arts and discontinued its VisiCalc program.
By that year Forrester Research considered Lotus, Ashton-Tate, Microsoft, and Borland the "Big Four" of personal computer software. Softletter estimated that in 1986 the "Big Three" of Lotus (9%, more than $275 million), Microsoft (8%), and Ashton-Tate (6%) together had 23% of total revenue of the top 100 microcomputer software companies. Of the 15 million Americans who used a personal computer in their job, a quarter used 1-2-3. Computer Intelligence estimated in 1987 that Lotus had 85% of the Fortune 1000 PC financial analysis, with Microsoft second at 6%. It also estimated a 20% share of the presentation software market, second to Ashton-Tate and ahead of Microsoft's 6%. A 1987 Computerworld survey gave Lotus a B grade for technology and product support, B+ for management, C+ for customer relations, and B− for marketing. Customers said that the company was slow to upgrade products, documentation and seminars were good but telephone support was poor, management had succeeded in defeating many competitors, customer relations had improved but copy protection was still the top complaint, and Jazz's failure showed that Lotus's ability to market products other than 1-2-3 and Symphony was unknown.