Ashton-Tate (
Ashton-Tate Corporation) was a
USThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
based software company best known for developing the popular
dBASEdBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers, published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on the Apple II, Apple Macintosh, UNIX, VMS, and IBM PC under DOS where it and its successors dBase III and dBase IV became one of the best-selling software titles for a...
database application. Ashton-Tate grew from a small garage-based company to become a multinational corporation with software development centers spread across the United States and Europe. Once one of the "Big Three" software companies, which included
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
and
LotusLotus Software is a software company with headquarters in Westford, Massachusetts...
, the company stumbled and was later sold to
BorlandBorland Software Corporation is a software company headquartered in Austin, Texas.It is a Micro Focus company. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn....
in September 1991.
History
The history of Ashton-Tate and dBASE are intertwined and as such, must be discussed in parallel.
Early History: SPI and dBASE II (1980–1982)
The company that would become Ashton-Tate was founded in January 1980 by George Tate and Hal Lashlee as
Software Plus, Inc (SPI), a software distribution house. SPI's first venture was a mail order company called
Discount Software and was run out of Tate's garage. The demand for microcomputer software and the service provided by the company quickly allowed the company to expand. By the end of 1980 SPI was operating out of a two bedroom apartment and had added another venture called
Softstream, Inc., a wholesale distributor.
Sometime that year a customer requested that SPI sell a new database program called
Vulcan. This led Tate and Lashlee to seek out the program's author.
Wayne RatliffCecil Wayne Ratliff wrote the database program Vulcan. Raised in Ohio and Germany, he now resides in the Los Angeles area....
had written Vulcan to help run an office football pool at his
day jobA day job is a form of occupation taken by a person in order to make ends meet while working another low-paying job in their preferred career track...
at JPL. Vulcan was a database application that ran on the
CP/MCP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
, and was modeled on
JPL/DIS, a
UnivacUNIVAC is the name of a business unit and division of the Remington Rand company formed by the 1950 purchase of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation, founded four years earlier by ENIAC inventors J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and the associated line of computers which continues to this day...
1106 program used at JPL and written by fellow programmer Jeb Long. Tate and Lashlee offered Ratliff royalty payments in exchange for exclusive marketing rights for Vulcan, and Ratliff agreed. As a result of this agreement, SPI also became a publishing company.
SPI turned to Hal Pawluk for assistance in marketing and merchandising the new product. Pawluck created the name for the new publishing company by combining George's last name with the fictional Ashton. (Later, George Tate bought a parrot and named it Ashton.) Pawluck also created the dBASE name, in part because of potential trademark issues with Vulcan. The product name would be
dBASE II to imply that it was more stable than the non-existent
dBASE I. dBASE II was put on the market at $695 and the orders poured in.
The company was soon able to hire Ratliff and Long, and by early 1982 SPI had grown to 17 employees. By the end of the fiscal year in January 1982, had revenues of almost $3.7 million with an operating loss of $313 thousand. To further grow the company and instill sound business practices, the company hired David Cole as their second president (succeeding Tate) in February 1982.
As Cole began to take control of Ashton-Tate and the publishing business, Lashlee took responsibility for running the SPI distribution business. Among Cole's early acts were to hire an accountant to set up a financial system, install a management structure, and introduce processes to manage operations and orders. Cole's mission was "to shift the balance of power from those who understand how computers work to those who need what computers can do."
In 1982 dBASE II was ported to the
IBM PCThe IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
and the product was released in September of that year. With the growing popularity of ever larger hard drives on personal computers, dBASE II turned out to be a huge seller. For its time, dBASE was extremely advanced. It was one of the first multi-file products that ran on a
microcomputerA microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. Another general characteristic of these computers is that they occupy physically small amounts of space when compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
, and its programming environment allowed it to be used to build custom applications for almost any role. Although microcomputers had limited memory and storage at the time, dBASE nevertheless allowed a huge number of small-to-medium sized tasks to be automated.
October 1982 also saw the release of two unsuccessful products:
Financial Planner and
Bottom Line Strategist. Both were released at the same price as dBASE II, but were quickly discounted and eventually discontinued.
Ashton-Tate: IPO and dBASE III (1983–1985)
By the end of January 1983, the company had returned to profitability. In February 1983 the company successfully released
dBASE II RunTime, which allowed developers to write dBASE applications and then distribute them to customers without them needing to purchase the "full" version of dBASE. Soon thereafter, the company opened its first foreign subsidiary in the United Kingdom. The growth in revenues was matched by a growth in employees. The company hired its first Human Resources manager, put together its first benefits package, and moved headquarters to 10150 West Jefferson Boulevard in Culver City. In April, Cole assumed the title of CFO and prepared the company for IPO.
In May 1983 the company sold off the mail order and distribution businesses and officially changed the company name to Ashton-Tate. It also took steps to control its technology by creating an in-house development organization, and to diversify by funding two outside development teams: Forefront Corporation and Queue Associates. That summer, they released
Friday!. By the time of the November 1983 IPO, the company had grown to 228 employees. The IPO raised $14 million. When the fiscal year ended in January 1984, revenues more than doubled to $43 million and net income jumped from $1.1 million (fiscal 1983) to $5.3 million.
In May 1984 the company announced, and in July shipped
dBASE III as the successor to dBASE II. July also saw the release of
FrameworkFramework, launched in 1984, was the first office suite to run on the PC 8086 with DOS operating system. ValDocs, an even earlier integrated suite, actually comparable to the original Macintosh of 1984 and Apple Lisa of 1982 was produced by Epson, a complete integrated work station based on the...
, an integrated office suite developed by Forefront Corporation and funded by Ashton-Tate. These were the company's first products released with copy protection schemes in an attempt to stop software piracy.
dBASE III was the first release written in the
C programming languageC is a general-purpose computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
to make it easier to support and port to other platforms. To facilitate the
rewriteA rewrite in computer programming is the act or result of re-implementing a large portion of existing functionality without re-use of its source code. When the rewrite is not using existing code at all, it is common to speak of a rewrite from scratch...
, an automatic conversion program was used to convert the original Vulcan code from
CP/MCP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
Z-80 and DOS 8088 assembly language code into C, which resulted in the beginnings of a difficult to maintain legacy code base that would haunt the company for many years to come. This also had the side effect of making the program run somewhat slower, which was of some concern when it first shipped. As newer machines came out the problem was erased through increased performance of the hardware, and the "problem" simply went away.
In fall 1984 the company had over 500 employees and was taking in $40 million a year in sales, the vast majority of it from dBASE or related utilities.
George Tate died of a
heart attackMyocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, is the interruption of blood supply to part of the heart, causing some heart cells to die...
at the age of 40 on August 10, 1984. David Cole became CEO briefly, but on October 29 announced his resignation and left for Ziff-Davis leaving
Ed EsberEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
to become CEO. Cole hired Esber because he was the marketing expert who launched
VisiCalcVisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool...
and who built the first distribution channels for personal computer software. (VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet and is credited for sparking the personal computer revolution and was the first commercially successful personal computer software package.)
During
Esber'sEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
seven year tenure, Ashton Tate had its most prosperous years and a few of its most controversial. It is also when Ashton Tate became one of the "Big Three" personal computer software companies who had weathered the early 1980s "
shakeoutShakeout is a term used in business and economics to describe the consolidation of an industry or sector, in which businesses are eliminated or acquired through competition...
", and was considered an equal of Microsoft and Lotus. Under his leadership Ashton Tate Sales grew over 600% from $40M to over $318M.
In November, shortly after
EsberEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
took over, dBASE III version 1.1 was released to correct some of the numerous bugs found in the 1.0 release. As soon as the 1.1 release shipped, development focus turned to the next version, internally referred to as dBASE III version 2.0. Among other things, the 2.0 release would have a new kernel for increased speed, and new functions to improve application development.
Esber'sEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
relationship with Wayne Ratliff however was tumultuous, and Ratliff quit several months later. Eventually a group of sales and marketing employees left to join Ratliff at Migent Corporation to compete with Ashton Tate. Later (January 1987), Ashton Tate would sue Migent for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. Ratliff would eventually approach
EsberEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
about rejoining Ashton Tate and insisting on reporting directly to him. Jeb Long took over as dBASE's main architect in Ratliffe's absence.
In October 1985, the company released
dBASE III Developer's Edition. Internally this release was known as version 1.2. It had some of the new features expected to be in the upcoming 2.0 release, including the new kernel and features primarily useful to application developers. 1.2 was one of, if not the most stable dBASE version that Ashton Tate ever released. Interestingly, it was also one of the least known and most often forgotten. Mostly, it was a release to appease developers waiting for 2.0 (dBASE III+).
In late 1985 the company moved its headquarters to the final location in
TorranceTorrance is a city located in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County, California, United States. Torrance's 1.5 miles of attractive beach coastline is less well-known than those of its immediate neighbors to the North, Redondo Beach, or to the South, Palos Verdes Estates...
at 20101 Hamilton Avenue in 1985. Development was spread throughout
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
, although dBASE development was centered at their
GlendaleGlendale is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. It lies at the eastern end of the San Fernando Valley, is bisected by the Verdugo Mountains, and is a suburb in the Greater Los Angeles Area...
offices.
dBASE III+ and 3rd Party Clones (1986–1987)
dBASE III+, a version including character-based menus for improved ease-of-use, had troubles maturing and had to be recalled just prior to its release in early 1986 due to an incorrect setting in the copy-protection scheme. However the company handled this with some aplomb, and although some customers were affected, Ashton-Tate's handling of the problems did much to improve customer relations rather than sour them. dBASE III+ would go on to be just as successful as dBASE II had been, powering the company to $300 million in sales in 1987.
dBASE had grown unwieldy over the years so
EsberEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
started a project under Mike Benson to re-architect dBASE for the new world of client servers. It was to be a complete rewrite, designed as the next generation dBASE.
dBASE was a complex product, and a thriving third-party industry sprung up to support it. A number of products were introduced to improve certain aspects of dBASE, both programming and day-to-day operations. As Ashton-Tate announced newer versions of dBASE, they would often decide to include some of the functionality provided by the third-parties as features of the base system. Predictably, sales of the third-party version would instantly stop, whether or not the new version of dBASE actually included that feature. After a number of such
vaporwareVaporware is a term used to describe a product, usually software, that has been announced by a developer during or before its development and, therefore, may never actually be released...
announcements, the third-party developers started becoming upset.
One particularly important addition to the lineup of third-party add-ons was the eventual release of dBASE
compilerA compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a computer language into another computer language...
s, which would take a dBASE project and compile it and link it into a stand-alone runnable program. This not only made the resulting project easy to distribute to end user, but it did not require dBASE to be installed on that machine. These compilers essentially replaced Ashton-Tate's own solution to this problem, a $395 per-machine "runtime" copy of dBASE, and thereby removed one source of A-T's income. The granddaddy of the compilers was Clipper. Eventually a number of these were developed into full-blown dBASE clones.
EsberEdward M. Esber, Jr. was a personal computer pioneer who laid the foundation for a revolutionary industry. Esber is credited with being the marketing guru behind two of the personal computer industry’s best selling application programs at the dawn of the personal computer revolution; VisiCalc and...
was upset with the companies that cloned dBASE products, but was always supportive of the 3rd party developers who he viewed as an important part of the dBASE ecosystem. He did not believe nor support companies that cloned dBASE and leveraged the millions of dollars his shareholders paid to market. Starting with minor actions, he eventually went to great lengths to stop cloners with cease-and-desist letters and threats of legal action. At one industry conference he even stood up and threatened to sue anyone who made a dBASE clone, shouting "Make my day!". This sparked great debates about the ownership of computer languages and chants of "innovation not litigation".
As a result of this continued conflict, the third-party community slowly moved some of their small business customers away from dBASE. Fortunately for Ashton-Tate, large corporations were standardizing on dBASE.
dBASE IV: Decline and fall (1988–1990)
Ashton-Tate had been promising a new version of the core dBASE product line starting around 1986. The new version was going to be more powerful, faster, easier to create databases with, improved indexes, networkable, support
SQLSQL is a database computer language designed for managing data in relational database management systems , and originally based upon Relational Algebra. Its scope includes data query and update, schema creation and modification, and data access control. SQL was one of the first languages for...
internally as well as interact with
SQL ServerMicrosoft SQL Server is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.-Genesis:...
, and would include a
compilerA compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a computer language into another computer language...
. Ashton-Tate announced dBASE IV in February 1988 with an anticipated release set for July of that year. dBASE IV was eventually released in October 1988 as two products: Standard and Developer's editions.
Unfortunately, dBASE IV was both slow and very buggy. Bugs are not at all that surprising in a major product update, something that would normally be fixed with a "dot-one" release before too much damage was done. This situation had occurred with dBASE III for instance, and Ashton-Tate had quickly fixed the problems. However a number of issues conspired to make the dBASE IV release into a disaster.
- For one, while dBASE IV did include a compiler, it was not what the developer community was expecting. That community was looking for a product that would generate stand-alone, executable code, similar to Clipper
Clipper is a computer programming language that is used to create software programs that originally operated primarily under DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs....
. The dBASE IV compiler did produce object code, but still required the full dBASE IV product to run the result. Many believed that Ashton-Tate intended dBASE IV to compete with and eliminate the 3rd party developers. The announcement alone did much to upset the livelihood of the various compiler authors.
- More problematic however was the instability of the program. The full scale of the problem only became obvious as more people attempted to use the product, especially those who upgraded to the new version. The bugs were so numerous that most users gave up as resigned to wait for a dot-one release. As word got out, sales slumped as existing users chose to hold off on their upgrades, and new users chose to ignore the product.
Neither of these issues would, by themselves, kill the product. dBASE had an extremely large following and excellent name recognition. All that was needed was an update that addressed the problems. At the time of its release, there was a general consensus within Ashton-Tate that a bug-fix version would be released within six months of the 1.0 release. If that had happened, the loyal users might have been more accepting of the product.
Rather than do that, Ashton-Tate management instead turned their attention to the next generation of applications, code named
Diamond. Diamond was to be a new, integrated product line capable of sharing large sets of data across applications. This effort had been underway for years and was already consuming many of the resources in the company's Glendale, Walnut Creek, and Los Gatos (Northern California Product Center) offices. However, once it became apparent that Diamond was years away from becoming a product, and with poor reviews and slipping sales of dBASE IV 1.0, Ashton-Tate returned focus to fixing dBASE IV.
It was almost two years before dBASE IV 1.1 finally shipped. During this time many customers took the opportunity to try out the legions of dBASE clones that had appeared recently, notably FoxBase and
ClipperClipper is a computer programming language that is used to create software programs that originally operated primarily under DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs....
.
Sales of dBASE plummeted. The company had about 63% of the overall database market in 1988, and only 43% in 1989. In the final four quarters as a company, Ashton-Tate lost close to $40 million. And in August 1989, the company laid off over 400 of its 1,800 employees. The Microsoft partnership also came to nothing as dBASE never worked well in this environment, and Microsoft eventually released
AccessMicrosoft Office Access, previously known as Microsoft Access, is a relational database management system from Microsoft that combines the relational Microsoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and software development tools...
in this role instead.
Sale to Borland (1991)
Esber had been trying to merge the company for years, including merger discussions with Lotus in 1985 and 1989. Ashton Tate's strategically inept board passed up numerous opportunities for industry changing mergers. Other merger discussions that Ashton-Tate's board rejected or reached an impasse included
CullinetCullinet was a software company whose products included the database management system IDMS and the integrated software package Goldengate. In 1989, the company was bought by Computer Associates...
, Computer Associates,
InformixInformix is a family of relational database management system products by IBM. It is positioned as IBM's flagship data server for online transaction processing as well as integrated solutions...
,
SymantecSymantec Corporation was founded in 1982 by Gary Hendrix with a National Science Foundation grant. Symantec was originally focused on artificial intelligence-related projects, including a database program. Hendrix hired several Stanford University natural language processing researchers as the...
and
MicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is a multinational computer technology corporation that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices...
. ( Note: Microsoft would later acquire Fox Software after Borland acquired Ashton Tate and the
United States Department of JusticeThe United States Department of Justice is a Cabinet department in the United States government designed to enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans...
forced Borland to not assert ownership of the dBase language).
In 1990 he proposed a merger with Borland. During the first discussions, the board backed out and dismissed Esber thinking him crazy to entertain a merger with Borland, and on February 11, 1991, replaced him with William P. "Bill" Lyons. Bill Lyons had been hired to run the non-dBASE business and heretofore was unsuccessful. Lyons would ship dBASE IV 1.1, a product Esber managed and was virtually ready to go to Beta when let go.
After giving the board a merger package including individual bonuses of $250K and giving the management team repriced options and
golden parachuteA golden parachute is an agreement between a company and an employee specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. Sometimes, certain conditions, typically a change in company ownership, must be met, but often the cause of termination is...
s, the board and Lyons reinitiated discussions with Borland at a substantially reduced price and reduced joint oversight.
Wall StreetWall Street is a street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. It runs east from Broadway to South Street on the East River, through the historical center of the Financial District. It is the first permanent home of the New York Stock Exchange; over time Wall Street became the...
liked the deal and Borland stock would reach new highs shortly before and after the merger. Some considered the $439 million in stock they paid to be too much.
The Borland merger was not a smooth one. Borland had been marketing the
ParadoxParadox is a relational database management system currently published by Corel Corporation. It was originally released for DOS by Ansa Software, but a Windows version was released by Borland in 1992.-Paradox for DOS:...
database specifically to compete with dBASE, and its programmers considered their system to be far superior to dBASE. The Paradox group was extremely upset whenever
Philippe KahnPhilippe Kahn is a technology innovator and entrepreneur, who is credited with creating the first camera phone solution sharing pictures instantly on public networks ....
so much as mentioned dBASE, and an intense
turf warA turf war is a colloquial term for a contention between two or more parties resulting in confrontation.It is a common problem in larger organisations when two divisions fight for access to resources or capital or over control of operations...
broke out within the company. Borland was also developing a competitor product called The Borland dBase Compiler for Windows. This product was designed by Gregor Freund who led a small team developing this fast, object-oriented version of dBASE. It was when Borland showed the product to the Ashton-Tate team that they finally conceded that they had lost the battle for dBASE.
Nevertheless, Kahn was observant of the trends in the computer market, and decided that both products should be moved forward to become truly
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
based. The OO-dBASE compiler was no more able to run under Windows than was dBASE IV, causing Borland to abandon both code bases in 1993 and spin up a new team to create a new product, eventually delivered as dBASE for Windows in 1994. Meanwhile Paradox was deliberately down-played in the developer market since dBASE was now the largest Borland product. Microsoft introduced Access in late '92, and took over almost all of the Windows database market. Further, in the summer of 1992 Microsoft had acquired Ohio based Fox Software, makers of the dBASE-like products FoxBASE+ and FoxPro. With Microsoft behind FoxPro, many dBASE and Clipper software developers would start working in FoxPro instead. By the time dBASE for Windows was finished the market hardly noticed.
When Borland eventually sold its
Quattro ProQuattro Pro is a spreadsheet program developed by Borland and now sold by Corel, most often as part of Corel's WordPerfect Office.Historically, Quattro Pro used keyboard command similar to Lotus 1-2-3. It is commonly said to have been the first program to use the "tabbed notebook" metaphor....
and Paradox products to Novell, where they would be joined with Word Perfect in an attempt to match Microsoft Office, Borland was left with
InterBaseInterBase is a relational database management system currently developed and marketed by Embarcadero Technologies. InterBase is distinguished from other DBMSs by its small footprint, close to zero administration requirements, and multi-generational architecture...
, which Esber had purchased in the late 1980s and had its origins as a derivative of the
RDBRDB may stand for:* RDB, the Recruitment Data Base from First Choice Software - sometimes known as RDB Pro and RDB ProNet see www.rdbpro.co.uk for more information.* RDB, the common acronym for Relational database...
database work at
DECDEC is an abbreviation that can stand for:* Dheeraj and East Coast LLC* Distance Education Council* Digital Equipment Corporation* diethylcarbamazine* Disasters Emergency Committee* Department of Environmental Conservation* DecemberSee also: TLA...
. Borland's ongoing strategy was to refocus its development tools on the corporate market with client-server applications, so Interbase fitted in as a low end tool and a good generic SQL database for prototyping. This proved to be the longest lasting and most positive part of the Ashton-Tate acquisition, ironic since it was almost an oversight and little known to Borland until then.
Overall, the Ashton-Tate purchase proved to unsuccessful. Several years later, Philippe Kahn would leave Borland amidst declining performance
Downfall
While Ashton-Tate's downfall can be attributed to several factors, chief among them were:
- the over reliance on a single-product line (dBASE),
- the poorly executed release of dBASE IV 1.0, and
- a focus on future products without addressing the needs of the current customers.
Any one of these would have been a surmountable problem, but combined they brought about the swift decline of the company.
Ashton-Tate's dependence on dBASE is understandable. It was one of the earliest
killer applicationA killer application , in the jargon of computer programmers and video gamers, has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware like a gaming console, operating system or other software...
s in the
CP/MCP/M is an operating system originally created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
world, along with
WordStarWordStar was a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...
and (on other platforms)
VisiCalcVisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers. It is often considered the application that turned the microcomputer from a hobby for computer enthusiasts into a serious business tool...
, and was able to make the transition to the
IBM PCThe IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
to maintain its dominance. Its success alone is what created and sustained the company through the first nine years. However, the over reliance on dBASE for revenue had a catastrophic effect on the company when dBASE IV sales tanked.
In the end, the poor quality and extremely late release of dBASE IV drove existing customers away and kept new ones from accepting it. This loss of revenue for the
cash cowIn business, a cash cow is a product or a business unit that generates unusually high profit margins: so high that it is responsible for a large amount of a company's operating profit...
was too much for the company to bear, and combined with management missteps, eventually lead to the sale to the upstart Borland International.
Non dBASE products
Through the mid-80s Esber increasingly looked to diversify the company's holdings, and purchased a number of products to roll into the Ashton-Tate lineup. By and large most of these acquisitions failed and did not result in the revenue expected. This experience is another illustration of the difficulty of integrating acquired companies and products in a rapidly changing technological market.
Friday!
Named after Robinson Crusoe's man Friday, this was a simple PIM program written around 1984, years before that acronym became popular. It was written using a customized version of dBASE III+. Several design flaws surfaced in beta-testing that required a major design and code re-write. These changes were made in-house and as a consequence, an ownership dispute arose between the original authors and Ashton-Tate Management. So after a significant advertising campaign, and lack-luster interest, Friday! was canceled. Sort of the
Microsoft BobMicrosoft Bob was a Microsoft software product, released in March 1995, which provided a new, nontechnical interface to desktop computing operations. Despite its ambitious nature, Bob was one of Microsoft's more visible product failures. Microsoft's Steve Ballmer mentioned Bob as an example of a...
of its day.
Javelin
This was a financial modelling package. "Javelin's ability to handle very complex structures - using facilities such as sharing data between different models. ... It was possible to develop some fairly sophisticated models with 1-2-3 but it was no good for time series". Javelin had a time series based database, linking of historical data to forecasting data, AI and models took up very little space. Philips & Drew liked version 1.1. Source "The Private Investor Spring 1987" Reprint.
Framework
Their most successful attempt at a breakout was with
FrameworkFramework, launched in 1984, was the first office suite to run on the PC 8086 with DOS operating system. ValDocs, an even earlier integrated suite, actually comparable to the original Macintosh of 1984 and Apple Lisa of 1982 was produced by Epson, a complete integrated work station based on the...
. Framework, like dBASE before it, was the brainchild of a single author,
Robert CarrRobert Carr is credited as the architect of GO Corporation's PenPoint OS. He was profiled in the book Programmers at Work , where he was credited as the author of Framework....
, who felt that integrated applications offered huge benefits over a selection of separate apps doing the same thing. In 1983 he had a runnable demo of his product, and showed it to Ashton-Tate who immediately signed a deal to support development in exchange for marketing rights.
Framework was an integrated
DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
-based office suite that combined a
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
,
spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper worksheet. It displays multiple cells that together make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, each cell containing either alphanumeric text or numeric values...
, mini-database application,
outlinerAn outliner is a computer program that allows one to organize text into discrete sections that are related in a tree structure or hierarchy. Text may be collapsed into a node, or expanded and edited....
, charting tool, and a terminal program. Later versions also added e-mail support. Framework also had the distinction of being available in over 14 languages. Although DOS based, Framework supported a fully functional
GUIGui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
based on character graphics (similar to Borland's
OWLThe Object Windows Library is a Borland C++ object-oriented framework originally designed for WinAPI. It was used in Turbo Pascal for Windows, Borland Pascal and their Borland C++ package. It was a competitor to the Microsoft Foundation Class Library .OWL had incomplete support by the Borland C++...
).
Framework eventually got locked into an industry battle, primarily with
Lotus SymphonyLotus Symphony was an integrated software package for creating and editing text, spreadsheets, charts and other documents on DOS operating systems. It was released by Lotus Development as a follow-on to its popular spreadsheet program, Lotus 1-2-3 and was produced from 1984-1992...
, and later with
Microsoft WorksMicrosoft Works is an office suite produced by Microsoft. Smaller, less expensive, and with fewer features than the Microsoft Office suite, its core functionality includes a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database. Newer versions have a calendar application and a dictionary while older...
. The market was never large to begin with, as most customers chose to purchase the large, monolithic versions of applications even if they never used the extra functionality. Borland later sold Framework to
Selections & Functions, who continue to sell it today.
MultiMate
MultiMateMultiMate was a word processor developed by Softword Systems Inc. for IBM PC MS-DOS computers in the early 1980s. Wilton H. Jones, a programmer turned entrepreneur MultiMate was a word processor developed by Softword Systems Inc. (later renamed Multimate International) for IBM PC MS-DOS computers...
was a
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
package created to copy the basic operation of a
WangWang may refer to:Name:* Wang , one of two surnames with distinct Chinese characters.* Titles in Chinese nobility* A title in Korean nobility* A title in Mongolian nobilityPlaces:* Wang River in Thailand...
dedicated word processor workstation on the PC. In the early 1980s many companies used MultiMate to replace these expensive systems with PCs, MultiMate offering them an easy migration path. Although it wasn't clear at the time, this migration was largely complete by the time Ashton-Tate bought the company in December 1985. Sales had plateaued, although they were still fairly impressive at the time.
What was originally a deliberate attempt to copy the Wang's system now made the product seem hopelessly outdated, and it would require a major upgrade to remain useful.
WordPerfectWordPerfect is a proprietary word processing application, now owned by Corel. Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer...
took advantage of these issues and took market share to a degree essentially lethal for MultiMate.
The Master Series of Products
Ashton-Tate purchased Decision Resources of Westport, CT in 1986. Decision Resources had created the Chart Master, Sign Master and Diagram Master programs. These were simple but effective business charting/drawing programs that counted on various
spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper worksheet. It displays multiple cells that together make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, each cell containing either alphanumeric text or numeric values...
programs being so poor at charting that people would gladly pay for another program to improve on them. By the time Ashton-Tate purchased the company it was clear that newer generations of spreadsheet programs would improve their charting abilities to the point where the Decision Resource products wouldn't really be needed, but the company was also working on a new drawing package that was more interesting in the long run.
After the purchase was completed it became clear that the drawing product was inadequate. Although it was released as
Draw Applause it never sold well.
Byline
Byline was an early desktop publishing program developed by the company SkiSoft and distributed and marketed by Ashton-Tate. When it was introduced sometime around 1987, it was both fairly inexpensive and easy to use, and gained a small but devoted following. But as time went on more and more so-called desktop publishing features were added to popular word processing software, probably reducing the market for such a low end desktop publishing program. Oddly, it was written in the Forth programming language.
RapidFile
A flat-file database program launched in October 1986 that was commonly used to create mailing labels and form letters on PCs running the DOS operating system. RapidFile was also adept at organizing and manipulating data imported from other software programs. It was designed to be a fast, easy-to-use and less-expensive database for those who did not require the sophisticated capabilities of dBASE. It achieved moderate success for Ashton-Tate, but a version for Microsoft Windows was never developed. RapidFile is unusual in that it was developed in the programming language Forth.
The most recent release of Rapidfile was version 1.2 released in 1986, with versions available in several languages including English, French and Dutch. Although Rapidfile was created for the DOS operating system, information is available
http://www.rapidfile.co.uk/ to show that it can be persuaded to work reasonably well in the DOS box of Microsoft Windows 95, 98, 2000 and XP, and also under GNU/Linux using the DOSemu
http://www.dosemu.org/ emulation software.
Mac products
When Apple was introducing the Macintosh in the early 1980s, Ashton-Tate was one of the "big three" software companies who Apple was desperate to have support their new platform. When approached, Ashton-Tate indicated an interest in becoming a major player in the new market.
As early as the winter of 1984, only a few months after the Mac's introduction, the company purchased a small Mac database developer and moved them to their Glendale development center to work on what would later be known as
dBASE MacdBASE Mac was a database management system for the Apple Macintosh, released by Ashton-Tate in 1987. Although the GUI was lauded in the press, the new application was so slow that it became something of a joke in the industry...
. Soon after this, in early 1985, they agreed to fund development of a
spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper worksheet. It displays multiple cells that together make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, each cell containing either alphanumeric text or numeric values...
program being developed by
Randy WiggintonRandy Wigginton was one of Apple Computer's first employees , creator of MacWrite, Full Impact, and numerous other Mac applications. He used to work in development at eBay, Quigo, Inc, and now works for Move.com...
, former project lead of
MacWriteMacWrite was a word processor application released along with the first Apple Macintosh systems in 1984. It was the first such program that was widely available to the public to offer WYSIWYG operation, with multiple fonts and styles...
. Years later they added a "high-end"
word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
from Ann Arbor Softworks, who were in the midst of a rather public debacle while trying to release
FullWrite ProfessionalFullWrite Professional was a word processor application for the Apple Macintosh, released in late 1988 by Ashton-Tate. Though it was released a year later than promised and had a number of problems, it developed a faithful following and some amount of commercial success...
which was now almost a year late.
Ed Esber and Apple Computer chairman
John SculleyJohn Sculley is an American businessman. Sculley was vice-president and president of PepsiCo , until he became CEO of Apple on April 8 1983, a position he held until leaving in 1993. Sculley is currently a partner in Sculley Brothers, a private investment firm formed in 1995...
jointly announced Ashton Tate's family of Mac products in Palo Alto. dBASE Mac finally shipped in September 1987, but it was dBASE in name only. Users were dismayed to learn that in order to interact with their major investment in dBASE on the PC, their applications would have to be re-written from scratch. Adding to their frustration was the fact that it crashed a lot and was extremely slow. Given that the program was really a completely new Mac-only system, it had to compete with other Mac-only database systems like
4th Dimension4th Dimension is a relational database management system and IDE developed by Laurent Ribardière....
,
HelixHelix is a pioneering database management system for the Apple Macintosh platform, created in 1983. Helix uses a graphical "programming language" to add logic to its applications, allowing non-programmers to construct sophisticated applications...
and
FileMakerFileMaker Pro is a cross-platform relational database application from FileMaker Inc., formerly Claris, . It integrates a database engine with a GUI-based interface, allowing users to modify the database by dragging new elements into layouts, screens, or forms.FileMaker evolved from a DOS...
.
FullWrite and Full Impact were released in 1988. Both were liked by reviewers and had leading edge features. FullWrite was an outstanding product, while Full Impact had the bad luck of being timed just after a major new release of
Microsoft ExcelMicrosoft Excel is a spreadsheet-application written and distributed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. It features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables and a macro programming language called VBA...
and the release of
Informix WingzWingz was a spreadsheet program sold by Informix in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Originally developed for the Macintosh, it was later distributed on Microsoft Windows, OS/2, NextStep and several other commercial flavors of Unix...
.
All three products were excellent at their core, but were really not viewed as a family and needed to link together more cleanly. They all also needed a solid follow-up release to address some of the bugs and performance issues. However, no major upgrades ever shipped for either FullWrite or dBASE Mac, and the only major upgrade to FullImpact shipped a full two years after release. Releases of
Microsoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , Atari ST , SCO UNIX, OS/2, and Microsoft...
and Excel soon closed some of the feature gaps, and as the
Mac OSMac OS is the trademarked name for a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
changed the products became increasingly difficult to run. Microsoft embarked on a campaign in earnest to discredit and kill Ashton-Tate's products, at one point exaggerating the system requirements for FullWrite, and going so far as to delete Ashton Tate software from Mac dealers demonstration computers.
FullWrite was later sold off by Borland in 1994 to Akimbo Systems, but by that time
Microsoft WordMicrosoft Word is a word processor designed by Microsoft. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems. Subsequent versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS , the Apple Macintosh , Atari ST , SCO UNIX, OS/2, and Microsoft...
had taken over the entire market and they too eventually gave up on it. dBASE Mac was sold off in 1990 and re-released as
nuBASE, but it was no more successful and was gone within a year. Full Impact simply disappeared.
SQL Server
One problem with dBASE and similar products is that it was not based on a
client-serverClient-server computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or work loads between service providers and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers operate over a computer network on separate hardware...
model. That means that when a database is used by a number of users on a
networkA computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
, the system normally relies on the underlying network software to deliver entire files to the user's desktop machine where the actual query work is carried out. This creates heavy load on the network, as each user "pulls down" the database files, often to do the same query over and over. In contrast, a client-server system receives only small
commands from the user's machine, processes the command locally on the server, and the returns only those results the user was looking for. Overall network use is dramatically lowered.
A client-server database is a fundamentally different sort of system than a traditional single-user system like dBASE, and although they share many features in common, it is typically not a simple task to take an existing single-user product and turn it into a true client-server system. As the business world became increasingly networked, Ashton-Tate's system would become irrelevant without updating to the client server era.
Ed Esber and
Bill GatesWilliam Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, philanthropist, and chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen.He is ranked consistently one of the world's wealthiest people...
introduced
SQL ServerMicrosoft SQL Server is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.-Genesis:...
to the world in a joint New York press conference. The basic idea was to use SQL Server as a back-end and dBASE as the front-end, allowing the existing dBASE market to use their forms and programming knowledge on top of a SQL system. SQL Server was actually a product developed by
SybaseSybase Inc. is an enterprise software and services company.-History:Sybase became the number two database system behind Oracle, after making a deal with Microsoft to share the source code for Microsoft to remarket on the OS/2 platform as "SQL Server". At the time, Sybase called the database server...
corporation, which Microsoft had licensed. From a business perspective this had little direct effect on the company, at least in the short term.
dBASE continued to sell well, and the company eventually peaked at $318M in yearly sales. During this period, Esber hired some of the most brilliant database engineers in the industry, including Dr. Moshe Zloof from IBM, Harry Wong, and Mike Benson (who would later head Esber's efforts to rebuild a new dBASE).
Tate Publishing
The Tate Publishing division of
Ashton-TateAshton-Tate was a US based software company best known for developing the popular dBASE database application. Ashton-Tate grew from a small garage-based company to become a multinational corporation with software development centers spread across the United States and Europe...
initially published books about Ashton-Tate's software; in October 1988 it branched out to third-party software. For other companies with the same name, see Tate Publishing.
Lawsuits
Esber had earlier threatened a group of dBASE users who were attempting to define a standard dBASE file format. With this standard, anyone could create a dBASE compatible system, something Esber simply wouldn't allow. But as soon as they were issued the cease-and-desist, they simply changed their effort to create a "new" standard known as "
xBasexBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE programming language and database formats. These are sometimes informally known as dBASE "clones"...
".
Esber had previously decided to sue one of the clone companies involved, then known as Fox Software. By the time the case worked its way to court in 1990, Fox Software had released
FoxPro' has two meanings:* Visual FoxPro - an object-oriented programming language and RDBMS, published by Microsoft, for Microsoft Windows.* FoxPro 2 - a text-based procedural programming language and DBMS, originally published by Fox Software and later by Microsoft, for MS-DOS, Microsoft Windows,...
and was busy increasing market share. If the court case was successful, Ashton-Tate could stop FoxPro and use the precedent to stop the other clones as well, allowing dBASE to regain a footing and recover from the dBASE IV incident.
These hopes came to an end when the case was thrown out of court. During the initial proceedings it was learned that dBASE's file format and language had been based on a
mainframeMainframes are computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term probably had originated from the early mainframes, as...
product used at JPL, where Ratliff had been working when he first created Vulcan. The credibility of Ratliff was jeopardized by his alternate claims of ownership while at Ashton Tate and then supporting the roots at JPL after he left. All the facts were never sorted out and Ashton-Tate's competitors had a self-interest motivated field day in writing amicus briefs.
When the federal judge reviewed the work of his clerks he overturned his earlier ruling, and decided to hear the case on whether or not Ashton-Tate owned the language. Unfortunately, his earlier ruling had already done considerable damage. Eventually, as part of the merger with Borland, the U.S. Justice Department required Borland to not assert copyright claims in menu commands and the command language of dBASE.
Trivia
Hal Pawluk wrote a "personal letter from a founder" in the first dBASE manual, and signed it Joe Ashton (who did not exist). Soon callers to Ashton-Tate tech support trying to get better service sometimes claimed they were personal friends of Joe Ashton. Later, for a time, a large parrot named Ashton was kept in a cage in the company's lunch area in order to easily answer where the name came from.
Various articles describe the original mail-order company as being named
Discount Software, while others call it Software Plus. (Both are correct, as they were different companies. Discount Software sold directly to consumers, while Software Plus was a distributor to VAR's and other resellers. George Tate also had a third company at the time he started Ashton-Tate, a small retail store chain called Softwaire Centre. That name would linger on for many years after the stores were no longer connected to George Tate and/or Ashton-Tate.)
Los Angeles advertising consultant Hal Pawluk named their first product dBASE II, as if it were a new and improved version. Hal also created a famous and controversial early dBASE magazine ad that read in part: "Those other databases are like
bilge pumpA bilge pump is a water pump used to remove bilge water. Since fuel can be present in the bilge, electric bilge pumps are designed to not cause sparks. Electric bilge pumps are often fitted with float switches which turn on the pump when the bilge fills to a set level. Because bilge pumps can...
s. And there's one thing we know about bilge pumps—they all suck"
A possibly more accurate version of the infamous Ed Esber quote cited in the main article is: "Wayne Ratliff is no more important to the success of Ashton-Tate than the guy at the warehouse who loads the boxes onto the truck."
George Tate and a number of early Ashton-Tate employees were Scientologists.
In the early years of microcomputer software, any database product (such as dBASE II) that could link together two or more data files was often advertised to be "relational", even though by that time the term "relational database" had been given a much more rigorous definition in the academic world.
An early version of dBASE II included a license agreement that said the buyer had the right to use the software for 99 years. This was later cited by long-time PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak in a collection of software license oddities.
dBASE and InterBase continue to be developed and sold separately. dBASE Plus is available through dataBased Intelligence, Inc. (http://www.dbase.com). InterBase continues to be improved and sold by CodeGear (http://www.codegear.com). A open source variant of this database named
Firebird-Music:* The Firebird, ballet for which Igor Stravinsky composed the music* Firebird , late 1990s/2000s blues-based power trio* Firebird , trumpet with valves and slide invented by Maynard Ferguson...
also exists.
At one point in the late 1980s, the then president of Ashton-Tate (Esber was CEO) proclaimed that every product would need to bring in at least 10% of the companies revenue or be dropped. This statement had the immediate effect of limiting the company to 10 products or fewer. Further, with dBASE bringing in about 70% of the revenue, the other product managers quickly convinced the president to drop the requirement.
Products
- dBASE
dBase II was the first widely used database management system for microcomputers, published by Ashton-Tate for CP/M, and later on the Apple II, Apple Macintosh, UNIX, VMS, and IBM PC under DOS where it and its successors dBase III and dBase IV became one of the best-selling software titles for a...
- Framework
Framework, launched in 1984, was the first office suite to run on the PC 8086 with DOS operating system. ValDocs, an even earlier integrated suite, actually comparable to the original Macintosh of 1984 and Apple Lisa of 1982 was produced by Epson, a complete integrated work station based on the...
– integrated word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
, outlinerAn outliner is a computer program that allows one to organize text into discrete sections that are related in a tree structure or hierarchy. Text may be collapsed into a node, or expanded and edited....
and spreadsheetA spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper worksheet. It displays multiple cells that together make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, each cell containing either alphanumeric text or numeric values...
application.
- InterBase
InterBase is a relational database management system currently developed and marketed by Embarcadero Technologies. InterBase is distinguished from other DBMSs by its small footprint, close to zero administration requirements, and multi-generational architecture...
– purchased from Groton Database Systems
- MultiMate
MultiMate was a word processor developed by Softword Systems Inc. for IBM PC MS-DOS computers in the early 1980s. Wilton H. Jones, a programmer turned entrepreneur MultiMate was a word processor developed by Softword Systems Inc. (later renamed Multimate International) for IBM PC MS-DOS computers...
– DOS-based word processorA word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....
- RapidFile – database
A database is an integrated collection of logically related records or files consolidated into a common pool that provides data for one or more multiple uses....
application written in MMSForth http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/ftp.dei.isep.ipp.pt/pub/forth/various/rapidfile.txt.