1347:, in 1986. Decision Resources had created the Chart Master, Sign Master, Map Master and Diagram Master programs. These were simple, effective business charting/drawing programs that counted on various spreadsheet 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 be needed, but the company was also working on a new drawing package that was more interesting in the long run.
1101:-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 downplayed in the developer market since dBASE was now the largest Borland product. Microsoft introduced Access in late 1992, and eventually took over almost all of the Windows database market. Further, in the summer of 1992 Microsoft acquired Ohio-based Fox Software, makers of the dBASE-like products FoxBASE+ and
709:
book, audio, video, and computer tutorials taught dBASE. Other companies produced hundreds of utilities that worked with the database, which
Ratliff believed contributed to Ashton-Tate's success; "You might say it's because the software is incomplete. There are 'problems' with dBASE—omissions for other software developers to fill". He noted that "If they weren't with us, they'd be against us", and Cole promised to always notify third parties before announcing a new product or changing dBase's marketing. In May the company announced, and in July shipped,
607:
starting point), which Inbar accomplished. He subsequently expanded Ashton-Tate's operations across Europe with subsidiaries in
Germany and the Netherlands. When Turner brought Inbar to the Culver City, California, corporate headquarters of Ashton-Tate to be trained, the offices were so crowded that the only space available for Inbar was a small desk beside a large photocopier, with no phone line; the offices were so crowded that when Turner needed to conduct a confidential meeting, he would have it standing up in the nearby restroom.
603:
distribution efforts and encouraged exclusive distributors in major markets to translate dBASE II from
English to non-English versions. The early presence of dBASE II in international markets, as IBM rolled out the PC in those markets, facilitated rapid growth in sales and market share for dBASE. At one point in 1983, the company's French distributor "La Commande Electronique" (whose owner was Hughes LeBlanc) claimed that "one in ten buyers of a PC in France is buying dBASE II."
1105:. With Microsoft behind FoxPro, many dBASE and Clipper software developers would start working in FoxPro instead. By the time dBASE for Windows was released, the market hardly noticed. Microsoft appears to have neglected FoxPro subsequent to the acquisition, perhaps because they also owned and promoted Microsoft Access, a direct competitor to dBASE. Certainly, the PC database market became a great deal less competitive as a result of their deal to buy FoxPro.
586:, the founders did not make a practice of hiring experienced veterans, and most of the team at Ashton-Tate were young and enthusiastic, but inexperienced. Jim Taylor was responsible for product management in the early days, and worked closely with Wayne Ratliff and the other key developers on dBASE II. In 1982 Perry Lawrence and Nelson Tso were the two developers who were employed at Ashton-Tate, while Wayne Ratliff employed Jeb Long from his royalty stream.
900:, 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 users, 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 their income. The most successful such compiler was
245:
66:
550:
being more reliable than a first release. The original manual was too complex from Pawluk's perspective, so he wrote a second manual, which was duly included in the package along with the first. Pawluk created the name for the new publishing company by combining George's last name with the fictional Ashton surname, purportedly because it was felt that "Ashton-Tate" sounded better, or was easier to pronounce, than "Lashlee-Tate".
25:
1132:. 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 they acquired Ashton-Tate.
168:
1281:. Later versions also added e-mail support and a FRED Developer's toolKit with a FRED RunTime version that allowed developers to distribute free versions of Framework that run FRED applications. Framework also had the distinction of being available in over 14 languages, and it was more successful in Europe than in North America. Although DOS based, Framework supported a fully functional
1015:, which also limited its success. A version of dBASE that communicated directly with SQL Server, called dBASE IV Server Edition, was released in 1990, and was reviewed as the best available client for SQL Server (in both Databased Advisor and DBMS magazines), but the product never gained traction and was one of the casualties of the Borland acquisition. Microsoft eventually released
1642:, 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.
1563:, 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
641:. The Bottom Line Strategist was a template financial analysis system that had very limited flexibility and function. Both were released at the same price as dBASE II, but neither product was aggressively marketed, and both were put into a benign-neglect mode by Turner when it became clear that they did not have sizable potential.
839:. 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. Version 1.2 was one of the most stable dBASE versions that Ashton-Tate ever released, if not
1526:
All three products were excellent at their core, but were 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 were ever shipped for either FullWrite or dBASE Mac,
1400:
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
1325:
on the PC. In the early 1980s many companies used MultiMate to replace these expensive single-purpose 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
974:
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, resigned to wait for a dot-one release. As
610:
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 database products that ran on a microcomputer, and its programming environment (the dBASE language) allowed it to
569:
for the three startups: Discount
Software, Software Distributors, and Ashton-Tate. Cole was given free rein to run the businesses, while George Tate primarily remained involved in Ashton-Tate. Lashlee was somewhat less involved on a day-to-day basis in Ashton-Tate by this time, although he was always
1010:
Sales of dBASE had 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. In August 1989, the company laid off over 400 of its 1,800 employees. The
Microsoft partnership for a
823:
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
625:
Among Cole's early acts was 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
549:
already had an operating system called Vulcan. Hal Pawluk, who worked for their advertising agency, suggested "dBASE", including the capitalisation. He also suggested that the first release of the product "II" would imply that it was already in its second version, and therefore would be perceived as
1055:
In 1990 Esber proposed a merger with
Borland. During the first discussions, the board backed out and dismissed Esber thinking him crazy to entertain a merger of equals (combining the companies at existing market valuations) with the smaller competitor Borland, and on February 11, 1991, replaced him
873:
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
816:
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
755:
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"
708:
estimated that Ashton-Tate was the world's sixth-largest microcomputer-software company. dBASE II reportedly had 70% of the microcomputer-database market, with more than 150,000 copies sold. Ashton-Tate published a catalog listing more than 700 applications written in the language, and more than 30
1219:
that required a major redesign and rewriting of code. These changes were made in-house by Jim Lewis soon after he joined Ashton-Tate as a lead developer and product manager. After a significant advertising campaign and modest interest, Friday! was eventually withdrawn from the market. (See also,
910:
was upset with the companies that cloned dBASE products but was always supportive of third-party developers, whom he viewed as an important part of the dBASE ecosystem. He neither believed nor supported companies that cloned dBASE, in the process leveraging the millions of dollars his shareholders
1614:
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
1027:
Esber had been trying to grow the company for years via acquisitions or combining forces with other software companies, including merger discussions with Lotus in 1985 and again in 1989. Ashton-Tate's strategically inept board passed up numerous opportunities for industry-changing mergers. Other
979:
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
1649:
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. In April 1991, the judge vindicated Esber's decision to protect Ashton-Tate's investment of several hundred million in the development and marketing of
1366:
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. Users designed a page by filling out an onscreen form that described page
1535:
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 time exaggerating the system requirements for FullWrite, and going so far as to delete Ashton Tate software from Mac dealers' demonstration
1498:
jointly announced Ashton Tate's family of Mac products in Palo Alto, California. 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
888:
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
577:
sales for Ashton-Tate. In a few weeks Turner solved a sales commission plan issue, that had been bothering George Tate for some time, with the top performing salesperson (Barbara Weingarten-Guerra), and Tate and Cole promoted Turner to be Vice President of world-wide sales three weeks after his
1570:
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
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for about $ 20 million in a transaction that an Ashton-Tate press release called "the largest ever in the microcomputer software industry". Sales had plateaued, although they were still fairly impressive at the time. What was originally a deliberate attempt to copy the Wang system now made the
1194:
Through the mid-1980s 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
602:
for months before it shipped. When dBASE II for the IBM PC shipped, it was one of few major applications available on the PC, and that fact, combined with good promotion and sales in the US and internationally, caused dBASE II sales to grow rapidly. Turner expanded Ashton-Tate's international
668:
Cole also took steps to control its technology by creating an in-house development organization (headed by Harvey Jean, formerly of JPL, as VP engineering), and to diversify by funding two outside development teams: Forefront Corporation (the developer of the product that would later be named
664:
In May 1983 Cole changed the name of the SPI holding company to be Ashton Tate, which put the company in the position of having a mail order company "Discount Software" and "Software Distributors" as subsidiaries. The newly renamed holding company promptly sold Discount Software and Software
606:
In the winter of 1982, Turner recruited the managing director (David Imberg, now David Inbar) for Ashton-Tate's first subsidiary, Ashton-Tate UK. Turner set a goal for Inbar of achieving 15% per month compound revenue growth in the first 18 months (using the prior UK distributor's volume as a
1179:, and was able to make the transition to the IBM PC to maintain its dominance. Its success alone is what created and sustained the company through the first nine years. However, the overreliance on dBASE for revenue had a catastrophic effect on the company when dBASE IV sales tanked.
1254:, 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.
971:, 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 third-party developers. The announcement alone did much to upset the livelihood of the various compiler authors.
1300:. 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 and it is being supported today at Framework.com.
1387:
became more common. Also, 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, Byline was written in the
1499:
re-written from scratch. Adding to their frustration was the fact that it crashed frequently 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
938:
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, and easier to create databases with. It would have improved indexes and networking, support
560:
version of the software and a separate, sealed disk with the full version; they could return the unopened disk for a refund within 30 days. The guarantee likely persuaded many to risk purchasing the $ 700 application. In 1981 the founders hired
1463:("Mac") in the early 1980s, Ashton-Tate was one of the "big three" software companies that Apple desperately wanted to support their new platform. When approached, Ashton-Tate indicated an interest in becoming a major player in the new market.
653:, which allowed developers to write dBASE applications and then distribute them to customers without them needing to purchase the "full" version of dBASE. The growth in revenue was matched by a growth in employees. The company hired its first
478:
and written by fellow programmer Jeb Long. Ashton-Tate was launched as a result of George Tate and Hal Lashlee having discovered Vulcan from Ratliff in 1981 and licensing it (Ashton was Tate's after-the-fact parrot, whose cage was kept in his
1067:, the board and Lyons reinitiated discussions with Borland, but this time structured as a take-over of Ashton-Tate with a significant premium over Ashton-Tate's current market valuation but substantially below the price Esber had negotiated.
995:(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 its focus to fixing dBASE IV.
679:, the company had grown to 228 employees. The IPO raised $ 14 million. When the fiscal year ended in January 1984, revenues had more than doubled to $ 43 million and net income had jumped from $ 1.1 million (fiscal 1983) to $ 5.3 million.
1466:
As early as the winter of 1984, only a few months after the Macintosh introduction, the company hired a small Macintosh database development team and moved them to their Glendale development center to work on what would later be known as
987:. 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, Torrance,
1630:
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.
1514:
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
958:" 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 1.0 release a disaster.
804:
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
1011:
version called the Ashton-Tate/Microsoft SQL Server also came to nothing, as Ashton-Tate's sales channels were not prepared to sell what was then a high-end database. The first version of SQL Server also only ran on IBM
665:
Distributors. Cole negotiated an agreement with Wayne Ratliff in which Ratliff exchanged his future royalty stream on dBASE into equity in Ashton Tate, thereby significantly increasing the profitability of the company.
611:
be used to build a wide variety of custom applications. 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. The
1593:
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
1084:
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 Kahn so much as mentioned dBASE, and an intense
1412:
Rapidfile version 1.2 was 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
1089:
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,
951:. 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.
962:
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
998:
It was almost two years before dBASE IV 1.1 finally shipped (in July 1990). During this time many customers took the opportunity to try out the legions of dBASE clones that had appeared recently, notably
2200:
InformationWeek, Oct.21,'91, p.15: "The Justice Department had intervened... The consent decree permits the merger but... Borland may not sue any competitor for copyright infringement based on the dBase
1056:
as CEO with William P. "Bill" Lyons. Lyons had been hired to run the non-dBASE business and heretofore had been unsuccessful. Lyons would ship dBASE IV 1.1, a product Esber managed and was already in
874:
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 $ 318 million in sales in 1987.
759:
In fall 1984 the company had over 500 employees and was taking in $ 40 million a year in sales (with approximately $ 15 million in Europe), the vast majority of it from dBASE or related utilities.
889:
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
777:, California, in early August, 1984 and presented the new products like Friday! to hundreds of clients, and staff. Immediately after the Queen Mary convention, George Tate suddenly died of a
1135:
Overall, the Ashton-Tate purchase proved to be unsuccessful. Several years later, Philippe Kahn would leave Borland amidst declining financial performance, including many years of losses.
1367:
characteristics: margins, columns, font and size, and so on. The program created the page and an onscreen preview. This method of working was in contrast to the more directly interactive
1215:(PIM) program written around 1983, years before that acronym became popular. It used a customized version of dBASE II, predating the dBASE III product. Several design flaws surfaced in
1650:
dBase, by ruling that Ashton-Tate did own the language. Unfortunately, his earlier ruling had already done considerable damage. Eventually, as part of the merger with Borland, the
1586:
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
1567:
from the user's machine, processes the command locally on the server, and then returns only those results the user was looking for. Overall network use is dramatically lowered.
881:
started a project under Mike Benson to re-architect dBASE for the new world of client–server software. It was to be a complete rewrite, designed as the next generation dBASE.
1634:
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
1182:
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
954:
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 "
637:. The Financial Planner was a sophisticated financial modeling system that used its own internal language - but it was not as widely appealing as spreadsheets like
2372:
1401:
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
2382:
1073:
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.
2227:
1654:
required that Borland not assert copyright claims to menu commands and the command language of dBASE. This paved the way for Microsoft to buy Fox Software.
1606:
The Tate Publishing division of Ashton-Tate initially published books about Ashton-Tate's software; in October 1988 it branched out to third-party software.
1622:
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,
1063:
After giving the board a merger compensation package (including individual bonuses of $ 250 thousand) and giving the management team repriced options and
843:
most stable. 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+).
565:
to be the chairman, president and CEO of their group of companies. The group was called "Software Plus". It did not trade under its own name, but was a
533:
Glenn Johnson was Co-Founder, C.E.O., and Chairman Of The Board of Directors of Softwaire Centre International. Tate & Lashlee were co-investors.
2402:
1077:, CEO of Borland, apparently did not consult with his management team prior to committing to acquire Ashton Tate over a weekend visit to Los Angeles.
1094:
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.
809:", and was considered an equal of Microsoft and Lotus Development. Under his leadership Ashton-Tate sales grew over 600% from $ 40M to over $ 318M.
2392:
793:
and who built the first distribution channels for personal computer software. (VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet and is credited for sparking the
2367:
1801:
1590:
corporation, which Microsoft had licensed. From a business perspective this had little direct effect on the company, at least in the short term.
721:, an integrated office suite developed by Forefront Corporation and funded by Ashton-Tate. These were the company's first products released with
915:
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 "
186:
2387:
1186:
was too much for the company to bear, and combined with management missteps, eventually led to the sale to the upstart Borland International.
1097:
Nevertheless, Kahn was observant of the trends in the computer market, and decided that both products should be moved forward to become truly
980:
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.
2412:
832:
about rejoining Ashton-Tate and insisting on reporting directly to him. Jeb Long took over as dBASE's main architect in Ratliff's absence.
629:
Cole licensed two products in 1982, building on his publishing background. These two unsuccessful products were launched in October 1982:
1834:
2407:
1712:
1571:
business world became increasingly networked, Ashton-Tate's system would become irrelevant without updating to the client server era.
1150:
the appalling quality of dBASE IV on release, compounded by the complete failure to take any action to rectify this when it was needed
1896:
2397:
1938:
983:
Rather than do that, Ashton-Tate management instead turned their attention to the next generation of applications, code named
1715:
975:
word got out, sales slumped as existing users chose to hold off on their upgrades, and new users chose to ignore the product.
2241:
1160:
Any one of these would have been a surmountable problem, but combined they brought about the swift decline of the company.
1543:
had achieved market domination and they, too, eventually gave up on it. dBASE Mac was sold off in 1990 and re-released as
515:, Los Angeles. Johnson's concept of retail store that sold software only, is the foundational retail concept of today's
130:
1049:
102:
1350:
After the purchase was completed it became clear that the drawing product was inadequate. Although it was released as
483:
office) The original agreement was written on one page, and called for simple, generous royalty payments to Ratliff.
2345:
2156:
222:
204:
149:
52:
109:
911:
had paid to market dBASE. Starting with minor actions, he eventually went to great lengths to stop cloners with
1004:
964:
901:
87:
1057:
1129:
955:
116:
570:
aware of and up to speed on all three of the businesses, and was an active board member and officer of SPI.
2234:
1406:
1212:
896:
One particularly important addition to the lineup of third-party add-ons was the eventual release of dBASE
794:
622:
ending in January 1982, the firm had revenues of almost $ 3.7 million with an operating loss of $ 313,000.
83:
38:
1211:, because, by using the program, one could supposedly "get everything done by Friday!", this was a simple
2269:
1646:
1091:
2216:
1766:
1261:-based document-based office suite with an interactive computer language named FRED that combined in an
930:
customers away from dBASE. Fortunately for Ashton-Tate, large corporations were standardizing on dBASE.
98:
1389:
1195:
difficulty of integrating acquired companies and products in a rapidly changing technological market.
598:
operating system) and shipped in September 1982. Pawluk ran advertisements promoting dBASE II for the
904:, from Nantucket Software. Eventually a number of these were developed into full-blown dBASE clones.
870:
781:
at the age of 40 on August 10, 1984. David Cole on October 29 announced his resignation and left for
578:
initial hire. Turner was approximately the 12th employee of Ashton Tate. Since the company was truly
405:
1668:
1500:
1487:
from Ann Arbor Softworks, who were in the midst of a rather public debacle while trying to release
1384:
1335:
took advantage of these issues and took market share to a degree essentially lethal for MultiMate.
1251:
1246:
1208:
988:
733:
717:
393:
347:
846:
In late 1985 the company moved its headquarters to the final location at 20101 Hamilton Avenue in
179:
that states a Knowledge editor's personal feelings or presents an original argument about a topic.
1327:
676:
615:(VARs) who developed applications using dBASE became an important early sales channel for dBASE.
579:
545:
Vulcan was sold by SCDP Systems. The founders needed to change the name of the software, because
428:
The history of Ashton-Tate and dBASE are intertwined and as such, must be discussed in parallel.
401:
76:
1216:
1488:
1405:
was never developed. RapidFile is unusual in that it was developed in the programming language
1293:
1286:
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2019:
1968:
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By the end of January 1983, the company was profitable. In February 1983 the company released
2329:
2172:
2077:
1990:
1651:
1598:, Harry Wong, and Mike Benson (who would later head Esber's efforts to rebuild a new dBASE).
1582:
to the world in a joint New York press conference. The basic idea was to use SQL Server as a
1527:
and the only major upgrade to FullImpact shipped a full two years after release. Releases of
1344:
992:
926:
As a result of this continued conflict, the third-party community slowly moved some of their
916:
885:
778:
737:
1833:
1547:, but it was no more successful and was gone within a year. Full Impact simply disappeared.
1236:
to distribute their financial modeling software named Javelin outside of the US and Canada.
2332:– details the court case in which dBASE's history lost them the ability to claim copyright.
2323:
1583:
1579:
1274:
1037:
944:
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847:
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assembly language code into C, which resulted in the beginnings of a difficult to maintain
612:
445:
389:
328:
2149:
In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High-Tech Marketing Disasters, Second Edition
1143:
While Ashton-Tate's downfall can be attributed to several factors, chief among them were:
8:
1331:
product seem hopelessly outdated, and it would require a major upgrade to remain useful.
1124:, which Esber had purchased in the late 1980s and had its origins as a derivative of the
1048:. (Microsoft would later acquire Fox Software after Borland acquired Ashton-Tate and the
1033:
684:
658:
123:
507:
Softwaire Centre International, the Original Software Store and franchised retail chain.
2299:
2282:
Howard, William (May 8, 1989), "Publisher Fishing for Independently Written Software",
1635:
1363:
1164:
1081:
1028:
merger discussions that Ashton-Tate's board rejected or reached an impasse on included
546:
487:
2320:– from Ed Esber's official website contains host of articles and financial performance
2105:
1203:
Friday! was a product conceived during the David Cole era at Ashton-Tate. Named after
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2222:
2152:
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1402:
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1318:
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FullWrite was later sold off by Borland in 1994 to Akimbo Systems, but by that time
740:, an automatic conversion program was used to convert the original Vulcan code from
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manager, put together its first benefits package, and moved headquarters to 10150
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to become CEO. Cole hired Esber because he was the marketing expert who launched
726:
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Ashton-Tate's dependence on dBASE is understandable. It was one of the earliest
1153:
a focus on future products without addressing the needs of the current customers
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and was the first commercially successful personal computer software package.)
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2242:"Ashton-Tate signs agreement to purchase Multimate International Corporation"
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562:
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449:
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378:
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One problem with dBASE and similar products is that it was not based on the
1086:
736:
to make it easier to support and port to other platforms. To facilitate the
1623:
1495:
1430:
1250:. Framework, like dBASE before it, was the brainchild of a single author,
825:
817:
for increased speed, and new functions to improve application development.
2130:
2053:
2024:
1873:
1743:
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model. That means that when a database is used by a number of users on a
1472:
1332:
1322:
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1117:
1109:
1070:
968:
619:
557:
480:
1292:
Framework eventually got locked into an industry battle, primarily with
1080:
The Borland merger was not a smooth one. Borland had been marketing the
1575:
1471:. Soon after this, in early 1985, they agreed to fund development of a
1434:
1426:
1422:
1125:
851:
782:
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453:
504:
Software Distributors, aka Softeam (Glenn Johnson /CEO Mark Vidovich).
2177:
2082:
1995:
1767:"ASHTON-TATE : Confronting a Hard Life in the World of Software"
1704:
1695:
1686:
1508:
1468:
1309:
1121:
1045:
890:
669:"Framework") and Queue Associates. That Spring, Ashton Tate released
638:
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65:
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Ashton-Tate copyright shield for dBASE line stripped by court order
1708:
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790:
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382:
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is written like an interpretative history with very little sourcing
2317:
1939:"30 Years Ago: The Rise, Fall and Survival of Ashton-Tate's dBASE"
1418:
1368:
417:
408:. Once one of the "Big Three" software companies, which included
317:
1417:
to show that it can be persuaded to work reasonably well in the
861:
1627:
1587:
1442:
1120:
in an attempt to match Microsoft Office, Borland was left with
1113:
1102:
1052:
forced Borland to not assert ownership of the dBASE language.)
1000:
599:
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511:
The first Software Store opened in May 1981. It was located on
471:
467:
1414:
893:
announcements, third-party developers started becoming upset.
1943:
1663:
1616:
1438:
644:
386:
343:
1957:
Harvard Business School, Case Study, Ashton-Tate, 0-387-146.
1232:
On April 10, 1986, Ashton-Tate signed a marketing deal with
767:
Ashton Tate held a large company wide convention aboard the
715:
as the successor to dBASE II. July also saw the release of
536:
SCI was later sold to Wayne Green Publishing, publisher of
530:
By August 1984, SCI had grown to 113 stores, in 32 states.
497:
Discount Software Group, one of the first companies to sell
1531:
and Excel soon closed some of the feature gaps, and as the
1168:
1012:
748:
744:
741:
460:
1905:
three years as Ashton Tate's First Vice President of Sales
1802:"Omikron TRS-80 Boards, NEWDOS+, and Sundry Other Matters"
416:, the company stumbled in the late 1980s and was sold to
1639:
1595:
1445:
1282:
1258:
940:
933:
574:
475:
404:. It grew from a small garage-based company to become a
2217:"Borland to Acquire Ashton-Tate in a $ 439-Million Deal"
573:
In June 1982 Cole hired Rod Turner as the director of
431:
1922:
Rod Turner's ... role in building Ashton Tate (dBASE)
1835:"George Tate is dead at 40; computer software leader"
1244:
Their most successful attempt at a breakout was with
919:". This sparked great debates about the ownership of
2209:
2207:
2191:
From the product manager for dBASE IV Server Edition
486:
Tate and Lashlee had already built three successful
2326:– contains many notes on the early history of dBASE
2135:
a native code compiler for dBase ..later evolved ..
90:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
2215:
1285:based on character graphics (similar to Borland's
1147:the over-reliance on a single-product line (dBASE)
2204:
1747:(interview). Vol. 3, no. 2. p. 131
1317:package created to copy the basic operation of a
854:, although dBASE development was centered at the
2359:
1732:
1730:
1338:
2373:Defunct software companies of the United States
2147:Chapman, Merrill R. (2006), "Making Ed's Day",
2106:"Catalog Search | Computer History Museum"
1897:"Rod Turner: Executive Profile & Biography"
1831:
732:dBASE III was the first release written in the
556:had an unusual guarantee. Customers received a
2383:Defunct companies based in Greater Los Angeles
2040:
2011:
1982:
1862:
1860:
1858:
1790:
385:company best known for developing the popular
1977:early 1983 ... dBASE RunTime software package
1727:
862:dBASE III+ and third party clones (1986–1987)
2338:Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer
2069:
1615:effort to create a "new" standard known as "
1343:Ashton-Tate purchased Decision Resources of
884:dBASE was a complex product, and a thriving
877:dBASE had grown unwieldy over the years, so
594:dBASE II was ported to the IBM PC (i.e. the
1855:
1827:
1825:
1454:
1415:RapidFile database software, by Ashton Tate
923:and chants of "innovation not litigation".
53:Learn how and when to remove these messages
2086:. Vol. 6, no. 15. pp. 72–73
1999:. Vol. 6, no. 14. pp. 80–83
645:Ashton-Tate: IPO and dBASE III (1983–1985)
243:
2403:Software companies disestablished in 1991
1796:
1022:
683:Such a market share would be the envy of
223:Learn how and when to remove this message
205:Learn how and when to remove this message
150:Learn how and when to remove this message
2270:Tate Publishing: building an aftermarket
2049:"Judging the Guides: Here Comes dBASics"
1975:. Vol. 3, no. 2. p. 137.
1966:
1932:
1930:
1822:
1459:When Apple Computer was introducing the
2393:Companies based in Torrance, California
2230:from the original on December 12, 2015.
2213:
2146:
2047:Howard, William K. (February 7, 1984).
943:internally as well as interacting with
2368:Software companies established in 1980
2360:
2281:
2057:. Vol. 3, no. 2. p. 171
2046:
2028:. Vol. 3, no. 2. p. 144
2017:
1988:
1967:Krasnoff, Barbara (February 7, 1984).
1877:. Vol. 3, no. 2. p. 114
1810:. Vol. 5, no. 7. p. 198
1736:
1483:. Years later they added a "high-end"
934:dBASE IV: Decline and fall (1988–1990)
2388:Defunct companies based in California
1927:
1737:Powell, David B. (February 7, 1984).
1494:Ed Esber and Apple Computer chairman
1189:
967:. The dBASE IV compiler did produce
835:In October 1985 the company released
2413:1991 disestablishments in California
2335:
2170:
2075:
2020:"All Aboard at Application Junction"
1937:Taft, Daryl K (September 19, 2013).
1936:
1866:
1491:, which was now almost a year late.
850:. Development was spread throughout
828:. Ratliff would eventually approach
161:
88:adding citations to reliable sources
59:
18:
1867:Hart, Glenn A. (February 7, 1984).
1832:Thomas K. Annis (August 14, 1984).
1050:United States Department of Justice
675:. By the time of the November 1983
432:Early history: dBASE II (1981–1983)
396:from the Forefront Corporation and
13:
2311:
1852:"initial software, called dBASEII"
1601:
1116:, where they would be joined with
14:
2424:
2408:1980 establishments in California
1108:When Borland eventually sold its
34:This article has multiple issues.
2018:Layman, Don (February 7, 1984).
1989:Caruso, Denise (April 2, 1984).
166:
64:
23:
2340:. WorldComm. pp. 295–298.
2290:
2275:
2263:
2194:
2185:
2171:Mace, Scott (January 8, 1990).
2164:
2140:
2123:
2098:
1960:
1951:
1379:, which became more popular as
490:, by that time - spring 1981.
75:needs additional citations for
42:or discuss these issues on the
2078:"Firms grab for dBase II gold"
1991:"Company Strategies Boomerang"
1910:
1889:
1846:
1779:
1759:
1156:the departure of Wayne Ratliff
725:schemes in an attempt to stop
699:on dBASE II's popularity, 1984
1:
2398:1991 mergers and acquisitions
2297:"Borland Deal Is Completed",
2076:Chin, Kathy (April 9, 1984).
1720:
1550:
1339:The Master series of products
837:dBASE III Developer's Edition
448:, to help him make picks for
2352:A remembrance of George Tate
2324:Interview with Wayne Ratliff
2272:, Soft-Letter, June 1, 1989.
1969:"The Many Faces of dBASE II"
1739:"From Basement To Boardroom"
1395:
1303:
1257:Framework was an integrated
1239:
1213:personal information manager
795:personal computer revolution
671:
7:
2181:. Vol. 12, no. 2.
1657:
1609:
1475:program being developed by
1138:
812:In November, shortly after
762:
493:The three companies were:
293:; 32 years ago
267:; 44 years ago
10:
2429:
2173:"Defending the Dbase Turf"
1390:Forth programming language
1227:
1198:
635:The Bottom Line Strategist
501:software through the mail.
423:
1479:, former project lead of
1357:
1321:dedicated word processor
1175:and (on other platforms)
589:
406:multinational corporation
362:
339:
323:
313:
305:
287:
279:
261:
251:
242:
16:American software company
1455:Apple Macintosh products
1112:and Paradox products to
659:West Jefferson Boulevard
283:George Tate, Hal Lashlee
2110:www.computerhistory.org
1869:"The ABC's of dBASE II"
1711:application written in
1691:Groton Database Systems
1328:Multimate International
1277:, charting tool, and a
402:Multimate International
375:Ashton-Tate Corporation
238:Ashton-Tate Corporation
2151:, Apress, p. 78,
1489:FullWrite Professional
1023:Sale to Borland (1991)
1019:in this role instead.
869:, a version including
734:C programming language
702:
185:by rewriting it in an
1786:Ashton Tate HBSC Case
1652:US Justice Department
1345:Westport, Connecticut
681:
631:The Financial Planner
613:value-added resellers
474:1108 program used at
358:, RapidFile, and more
2214:Lazzareschi, Carla.
1362:Byline was an early
1354:it never sold well.
1275:database application
685:Procter & Gamble
582:, using no external
446:database application
392:and later acquiring
390:database application
329:Torrance, California
84:improve this article
2336:Veit, Stan (1993).
2249:computerhistory.org
1519:and the release of
1165:killer applications
1034:Computer Associates
466:and was modeled on
420:in September 1991.
364:Number of employees
239:
2303:, October 12, 1991
2300:The New York Times
1840:The New York Times
1371:approach taken by
1364:desktop publishing
1190:Non-dBASE products
1171:world, along with
921:computer languages
756:simply went away.
618:By the end of the
547:Harris Corporation
488:start-up companies
237:
187:encyclopedic style
2223:Los Angeles Times
1772:Los Angeles Times
1689:– purchased from
1437:, and also under
1403:Microsoft Windows
1381:windowing systems
1377:Ventura Publisher
1296:, and later with
1128:database work at
1099:Microsoft Windows
1065:golden parachutes
457:assembly language
372:
371:
291:October 1991
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2015:
2009:
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1986:
1980:
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1903:. July 6, 2023.
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1798:Pournelle, Jerry
1794:
1788:
1783:
1777:
1776:
1763:
1757:
1756:
1754:
1752:
1734:
1638:product used at
1446:DOSEMU Main Page
1279:terminal program
1234:Javelin Software
947:, and include a
913:cease-and-desist
700:
661:in Culver City.
651:dBASE II RunTime
464:operating system
459:, it ran on the
444:wrote Vulcan, a
301:
299:
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275:
273:
268:
265:August 1980
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2314:
2312:Further reading
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2284:Palm Beach Post
2280:
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1775:. May 10, 1987.
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1750:
1748:
1735:
1728:
1723:
1660:
1612:
1604:
1602:Tate Publishing
1553:
1517:Microsoft Excel
1477:Randy Wigginton
1457:
1398:
1373:Aldus PageMaker
1360:
1341:
1306:
1298:Microsoft Works
1242:
1230:
1205:Robinson Crusoe
1201:
1192:
1141:
1092:object-oriented
1025:
936:
871:character-based
864:
765:
727:software piracy
723:copy protection
701:
695:
655:Human Resources
647:
592:
584:venture capital
567:holding company
438:Martin Marietta
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365:
335:
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2010:
1981:
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1821:
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1725:
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1717:
1702:
1700:word processor
1693:
1684:
1673:word processor
1666:
1659:
1656:
1611:
1608:
1603:
1600:
1552:
1549:
1541:Microsoft Word
1529:Microsoft Word
1521:Informix Wingz
1485:word processor
1456:
1453:
1397:
1394:
1359:
1356:
1340:
1337:
1315:word processor
1305:
1302:
1294:Lotus Symphony
1267:word processor
1241:
1238:
1229:
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1200:
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1154:
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1021:
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928:small business
863:
860:
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761:
704:By early 1984
693:
689:General Motors
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450:football pools
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2347:1-56664-023-7
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2251:. Ashton-Tate
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2158:1-59059-721-4
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2255:September 9,
2253:. Retrieved
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2003:February 10,
2001:. Retrieved
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1918:"Rod Turner"
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1879:. Retrieved
1872:
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1812:. Retrieved
1805:
1792:
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1749:. Retrieved
1742:
1698:– DOS-based
1690:
1644:
1633:
1624:Fox Software
1621:
1613:
1605:
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1496:John Sculley
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1217:beta-testing
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917:Make my day!
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513:W. Pico Blvd
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324:Headquarters
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137:
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82:Please help
77:verification
74:
50:
43:
37:
36:Please help
33:
2318:Ashton-Tate
2090:February 4,
2061:October 24,
2054:PC Magazine
2032:October 24,
2025:PC Magazine
1973:PC Magazine
1881:October 24,
1874:PC Magazine
1814:October 18,
1751:October 24,
1744:PC Magazine
1683:application
1681:spreadsheet
1578:introduced
1536:computers.
1473:spreadsheet
1333:WordPerfect
1323:workstation
1271:spreadsheet
1252:Robert Carr
1118:WordPerfect
1110:Quattro Pro
1071:Wall Street
969:object code
886:third-party
697:PC Magazine
620:fiscal year
558:crippleware
481:Culver City
440:programmer
140:August 2012
2362:Categories
2201:language."
1721:References
1580:SQL Server
1576:Bill Gates
1551:SQL Server
1451:software.
1441:using the
1423:Windows 95
1209:man Friday
945:SQL Server
867:dBASE III+
852:California
785:, leaving
783:Ziff-Davis
775:Long Beach
770:Queen Mary
525:App Stores
454:Intel 8080
110:newspapers
39:improve it
2178:InfoWorld
2131:"Clipper"
2115:March 28,
2083:InfoWorld
1996:InfoWorld
1901:Bloomberg
1705:RapidFile
1696:MultiMate
1687:InterBase
1669:Framework
1645:When the
1636:mainframe
1509:FileMaker
1469:dBASE Mac
1461:Macintosh
1449:emulation
1396:RapidFile
1310:MultiMate
1304:MultiMate
1247:Framework
1240:Framework
1122:InterBase
1046:Microsoft
993:Los Gatos
898:compilers
891:vaporware
858:offices.
718:Framework
712:dBASE III
706:InfoWorld
639:SuperCalc
436:In 1978,
410:Microsoft
398:MultiMate
394:Framework
356:InterBase
352:MultiMate
348:Framework
314:Successor
45:talk page
2228:Archived
1713:MMSForth
1709:database
1677:outliner
1658:Products
1610:Lawsuits
1584:back-end
1565:commands
1481:MacWrite
1263:outliner
1184:cash cow
1177:VisiCalc
1173:WordStar
1139:Downfall
1087:turf war
1042:Symantec
1038:Informix
1030:Cullinet
949:compiler
856:Glendale
848:Torrance
807:shakeout
791:VisiCalc
787:Ed Esber
763:Ed Esber
747:and DOS
694:—
554:dBASE II
383:software
340:Products
309:Acquired
256:Software
252:Industry
195:May 2021
2378:Borland
1561:network
1419:DOS box
1369:WYSIWYG
1273:, mini-
1228:Javelin
1199:Friday!
1167:in the
1082:Paradox
1005:Clipper
1001:FoxBase
985:Diamond
965:Clipper
956:dot-one
902:Clipper
821:Esber's
802:Esber's
800:During
738:rewrite
672:Friday!
424:History
418:Borland
381:-based
318:Borland
298:1991-10
296: (
288:Defunct
280:Founder
272:1980-08
270: (
262:Founded
181:Please
124:scholar
2344:
2155:
1628:FoxPro
1588:Sybase
1545:nuBASE
1533:Mac OS
1443:DOSemu
1358:Byline
1313:was a
1114:Novell
1103:FoxPro
1017:Access
753:legacy
600:IBM PC
596:MS-DOS
590:IBM PC
521:Google
519:&
472:Univac
468:JPLDIS
377:was a
126:
119:
112:
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2245:(PDF)
1944:eWeek
1664:dBASE
1617:xBase
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1326:from
908:Esber
879:Esber
830:Esber
814:Esber
626:do."
517:Apple
414:Lotus
400:from
387:dBASE
368:1,750
344:dBASE
131:JSTOR
117:books
2342:ISBN
2257:2022
2153:ISBN
2117:2023
2092:2015
2063:2013
2034:2013
2005:2015
1883:2013
1816:2013
1807:BYTE
1753:2013
1679:and
1507:and
1433:and
1431:2000
1385:GUIs
1383:and
1375:and
1319:Wang
1169:CP/M
1058:beta
1044:and
1013:OS/2
1003:and
991:and
749:8088
745:Z-80
742:CP/M
633:and
470:, a
461:CP/M
412:and
306:Fate
103:news
1640:JPL
1619:".
1596:IBM
1289:).
1287:OWL
1283:GUI
1259:DOS
1224:.)
1207:'s
1130:DEC
1126:RDB
941:SQL
841:the
824:of
773:in
687:or
677:IPO
575:OEM
523:'s
476:JPL
86:by
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2226:.
2220:.
2206:^
2175:.
2133:.
2108:.
2080:.
2051:.
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1993:.
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1941:.
1929:^
1920:.
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1824:^
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1769:.
1741:.
1729:^
1707:–
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