5 ms·

Lotus did a good job shooting itself in the foot. It's easy to second guess in hindsight, but it always amazed me that they didn't have any Windows story at all

Lotus did a good job shooting itself in the foot. It's easy to second guess in hindsight, but it always amazed me that they didn't have any Windows story at all for their one major product, Lotus 1-2-3, until 1991 or 92. (And even then it was amazingly buggy.) (And they did have multiple text-mode PC versions, VMS, Unix, Improv for NeXTStep...)

pinewurst 9y ago
It shouldn't be forgotten though that the original Lotus 1-2-3 was a masterpiece. Fast, easy to use, with a polished UI, a useful help system and tutorial. Almost all PC apps were amateur hour by comparison and that includes pre-Word MS.
- mschaef 9y ago
  Absolutely - Versions 1 and 2 were brilliant. I remember watching my dad use it with the keyboard shortcuts and wondering how he navigated the menus without the arrows. Those slash commands wound up at the core of a nice little macro langauge in v1 that was heavily elaborated in v2. (I remember commands for custom menus, etc.) (...and it all worked on a 4.77MHz 8088.)
- justherefortart 9y ago
  Word was a joke in the 80s/90s. Everyone used WordPerfect. By the end of the 90s though the MS Office addon had overtaken most places productivity software of choice. Primarily due to companies like Dell, Gateway 2000, AST, HP, Compaq, etc. including Office as an option when you purchased. I loved WP and 123. Begrudgingly switched to MS Office in 97.
  - mikestew 9y ago
    Primarily due to companies like Dell, Gateway 2000, AST, HP, Compaq, etc. including Office as an option when you purchased. I would posit that it was due to WP screwing the pooch at every turn. They held out until they couldn't on releasing a Windows version, and it was as buggy and unreliable as you would expect from a rushed product designed to check a marketing checkbox. WP also bet on OS/2, and they did it by porting what was already a poor product, so the OS/2 version ended up being a poor, buggy product that had the added bonus (due to an interpretation layer) of being dog slow. So maybe Microsoft's success can be attributed somewhat to bundling, but much of it can also be laid at the feet of competitors like WP and Lotus.
    - AgentIcarus 9y ago
      Was there something special about OS/2 that suggested it would be the winner of this war or did WP and Lotus just make the same bad bet at the same time?
      - mikestew 9y ago
        Remember the state of Microsoft's operating systems in 1992, when OS/2 2.0 was released: DOS, a purchased operating system that was barely worthy of the name, and a graphical shell on top of it. In other words, a house of cards and just as reliable. Cooperative, not pre-emptive, multitasking. 16-bits when 32-bit CPUs were standard. Contrast to OS/2 that had a 32-bit API, pre-emptive multitasking, and a more robust file system, all with the backing of IBM. That might not be a sure bet, but it was a good one. Turns out it wasn't, but it might have looked like it at the time given that it was inarguably technically superior to Windows 3.x and DOS. As it turned out, IBM refused to effectively market OS/2 and Microsoft was busy cutting bundling deals with manufacturers while releasing their "munchkins" (look it up, it's well documented) on Compuserve and Usenet. And then Windows NT came out, giving Microsoft a much less laughable operating system in their quiver, and that was pretty much it for OS/2.
        scholia 9y ago
        Unfortunately, OS/2 could barely load on the PCs of the day (it started swapping while loading), it had very little software, and cost a ridiculous price (from memory, something around $500). You had to vape your PC to run it. By contrast, you could pick up a copy of Windows for $40 and run it on top of DOS without losing your DOS software. If you didn't like it, it hadn't cost you much time or money. And there was a boom in Windows software with lots of cheap programs to try. Seriously, how would anyone expect OS/2 to win that battle?
        Fnoord 9y ago
        Eh, sorry, which Windows version are you on about? I remember our Pentium 1 75 MHz being shipped with OS/2 Warp. It was dogshit slow (and on top of that, I was an impatient kid). I was used to DOS (which could be fired up from OS/2 but then it didn't work well, and DOS 6.x was known to work better than that version). I was sitting more in DOS 6.x (booted from a floppy) than OS/2 Warp. Eventually, we bought a Windows 95 pirated copy for about 50 Dutch guilders (not sure how that translates to current currency due to Euro and inflation). It was a low risk deal indeed for the reason you suggested (cheap) however the real deal was expensive and we already paid for an OS, and we had a contact who would press thousands of these (in hindsight, probably related to Twilight CDs etc as both sourced from the infamous TUe network). So we went with that. We ended up not using it much either because we were used to DOS and didn't find Windows 95 stable. Not that DOS was super stable, it (6.x) was just more stable. The first Windows version I've ever used which was reasonably stable, was Windows 2000 (yes, I used NT 3.5x and NT 4.x and Windows 2.0 and Windows 3.1). Arguably, it was even more stable than XP which is probably the first version the general consumer used which was reasonably stable. Now, how much did a copy of Windows 95 cost back in the days? Well, I'd love to read some other sources but the fact we bought a pirated one for 50 Dutch guilders plus the source I found which says Microsoft suggested a retail price of 210 USD suggest a different price than 40 USD for Windows 95 [1]. Which leads me asking which Windows version you're referring to. No offense, btw. [1] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950607&slug=2125167 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199...
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Don't forget that Microsoft invented the notion of the office suite. Rather than buy separate programmes, you'd pay roughly the price of any two of the competition, and get W ord, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and Visio. Plus it all ran together, through OLE and COM, so that spreadsheets could be embedded into documents or presentations. If the recipient didn't have the suite, they'd need to buy it. Viral marketing, 1990s style. WP did get caught flat-footed on the Windows transition, but everyone, including Microsoft, had been pushing OS/2 up until that point.
    - scholia 9y ago
      > everyone, including Microsoft, had been pushing OS/2 up until that point. True up to a point. From at least the early 90s, Microsoft was trying like crazy to get companies to write Windows software instead ;-)
      - dredmorbius 9y ago
        Isn't that after Windows was released? And it's worth noting that Windows itself didn't really show up big until Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. Win 3.1 Workgroup was released in October, 1992, and the really stable version, 3.11, in November of 1993. That was still being rolled out up to several years later (enterprises are conservative). There was app development for it, yes, but Microsoft seemed to have already established its Office strategy. (Just checked: the initial announcement was in 1988.) This is somewhat ancient history, and I rather dimly remember it (my primary platforms then were already largely server: Unix and VMS, plus others), but desktop was how I accessed the "real computer".
        scholia 9y ago
        Microsoft was trying to get companies to write Windows software in 1986-87. At the time, it argued that developing for Windows was developing for OS/2 PM. Borland, Ashton-Tate and Lotus refused. In late 1987, Philippe Kahn said "People are afraid Microsoft is going to take control of the operating system." [1] Microsoft was afraid that IBM going to take control of the operating system. Windows 3.0 was enough of a success for Microsoft to intensify it efforts.... [1] http://voteview.uga.edu/gates.html http://voteview.uga.edu/gates.html
bboreham 9y ago
They bet on OS/2, and had a solid version for that around 1988. But nobody wanted it. Their solution was to go multi-platform, with an all-singing cross-platform super-product that would run everywhere. Except it didn't actually run anywhere; it broke under its own weight. So they were very much behind when they finally buckled down to porting the 1-2-3 codebase to Windows in 1991. Source: I was on the team that shipped the Motif and OpenLook versions of 1-2-3, separate but concurrent to the above.
- mschaef 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing. Was there able to be any code sharing between the Motif/OpenLook versions and the DOS/OS/2 versions? (Or just concepts?) The other thing I should've mentioned is that at the time, OS/2 did look like the surer bet than Windows. The success of Windows surprised everybody (including, I think, Microsoft.)
  - yuhong 9y ago
    Indeed the OS/2 2.0 debacle is one of the worst debacles in MS's history.
    - mschaef 9y ago
      Technical issues aside, Windows by itself made MS >$100B over the last 10 years. If that's 'one of the worst debacles'... (I did like MS OS/2 2.0 though...)
      - yuhong 9y ago
        One of the reasons is the unethical attacks they did later on.
  - bboreham 9y ago
    The spreadsheet engine was a port of the DOS version, which by that time was written in C. The GUI ran as a separate process and communicated with the engine via a character protocol into a bastardised "terminal driver". This fabulous kludge was driven by the testing regime: if we changed one byte of the spreadsheet engine it would trigger person-years of manual testing.

pinewurst 9y ago

It shouldn't be forgotten though that the original Lotus 1-2-3 was a masterpiece. Fast, easy to use, with a polished UI, a useful help system and tutorial. Almost all PC apps were amateur hour by comparison and that includes pre-Word MS.

mschaef 9y ago
Absolutely - Versions 1 and 2 were brilliant. I remember watching my dad use it with the keyboard shortcuts and wondering how he navigated the menus without the arrows. Those slash commands wound up at the core of a nice little macro langauge in v1 that was heavily elaborated in v2. (I remember commands for custom menus, etc.) (...and it all worked on a 4.77MHz 8088.)
justherefortart 9y ago
Word was a joke in the 80s/90s. Everyone used WordPerfect. By the end of the 90s though the MS Office addon had overtaken most places productivity software of choice. Primarily due to companies like Dell, Gateway 2000, AST, HP, Compaq, etc. including Office as an option when you purchased. I loved WP and 123. Begrudgingly switched to MS Office in 97.
- mikestew 9y ago
  Primarily due to companies like Dell, Gateway 2000, AST, HP, Compaq, etc. including Office as an option when you purchased. I would posit that it was due to WP screwing the pooch at every turn. They held out until they couldn't on releasing a Windows version, and it was as buggy and unreliable as you would expect from a rushed product designed to check a marketing checkbox. WP also bet on OS/2, and they did it by porting what was already a poor product, so the OS/2 version ended up being a poor, buggy product that had the added bonus (due to an interpretation layer) of being dog slow. So maybe Microsoft's success can be attributed somewhat to bundling, but much of it can also be laid at the feet of competitors like WP and Lotus.
  - AgentIcarus 9y ago
    Was there something special about OS/2 that suggested it would be the winner of this war or did WP and Lotus just make the same bad bet at the same time?
    - mikestew 9y ago
      Remember the state of Microsoft's operating systems in 1992, when OS/2 2.0 was released: DOS, a purchased operating system that was barely worthy of the name, and a graphical shell on top of it. In other words, a house of cards and just as reliable. Cooperative, not pre-emptive, multitasking. 16-bits when 32-bit CPUs were standard. Contrast to OS/2 that had a 32-bit API, pre-emptive multitasking, and a more robust file system, all with the backing of IBM. That might not be a sure bet, but it was a good one. Turns out it wasn't, but it might have looked like it at the time given that it was inarguably technically superior to Windows 3.x and DOS. As it turned out, IBM refused to effectively market OS/2 and Microsoft was busy cutting bundling deals with manufacturers while releasing their "munchkins" (look it up, it's well documented) on Compuserve and Usenet. And then Windows NT came out, giving Microsoft a much less laughable operating system in their quiver, and that was pretty much it for OS/2.
      - scholia 9y ago
        Unfortunately, OS/2 could barely load on the PCs of the day (it started swapping while loading), it had very little software, and cost a ridiculous price (from memory, something around $500). You had to vape your PC to run it. By contrast, you could pick up a copy of Windows for $40 and run it on top of DOS without losing your DOS software. If you didn't like it, it hadn't cost you much time or money. And there was a boom in Windows software with lots of cheap programs to try. Seriously, how would anyone expect OS/2 to win that battle?
        Fnoord 9y ago
        Eh, sorry, which Windows version are you on about? I remember our Pentium 1 75 MHz being shipped with OS/2 Warp. It was dogshit slow (and on top of that, I was an impatient kid). I was used to DOS (which could be fired up from OS/2 but then it didn't work well, and DOS 6.x was known to work better than that version). I was sitting more in DOS 6.x (booted from a floppy) than OS/2 Warp. Eventually, we bought a Windows 95 pirated copy for about 50 Dutch guilders (not sure how that translates to current currency due to Euro and inflation). It was a low risk deal indeed for the reason you suggested (cheap) however the real deal was expensive and we already paid for an OS, and we had a contact who would press thousands of these (in hindsight, probably related to Twilight CDs etc as both sourced from the infamous TUe network). So we went with that. We ended up not using it much either because we were used to DOS and didn't find Windows 95 stable. Not that DOS was super stable, it (6.x) was just more stable. The first Windows version I've ever used which was reasonably stable, was Windows 2000 (yes, I used NT 3.5x and NT 4.x and Windows 2.0 and Windows 3.1). Arguably, it was even more stable than XP which is probably the first version the general consumer used which was reasonably stable. Now, how much did a copy of Windows 95 cost back in the days? Well, I'd love to read some other sources but the fact we bought a pirated one for 50 Dutch guilders plus the source I found which says Microsoft suggested a retail price of 210 USD suggest a different price than 40 USD for Windows 95 [1]. Which leads me asking which Windows version you're referring to. No offense, btw. [1] http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19950607&slug=2125167 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199...
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  Don't forget that Microsoft invented the notion of the office suite. Rather than buy separate programmes, you'd pay roughly the price of any two of the competition, and get W ord, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, and Visio. Plus it all ran together, through OLE and COM, so that spreadsheets could be embedded into documents or presentations. If the recipient didn't have the suite, they'd need to buy it. Viral marketing, 1990s style. WP did get caught flat-footed on the Windows transition, but everyone, including Microsoft, had been pushing OS/2 up until that point.
  - scholia 9y ago
    > everyone, including Microsoft, had been pushing OS/2 up until that point. True up to a point. From at least the early 90s, Microsoft was trying like crazy to get companies to write Windows software instead ;-)
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      Isn't that after Windows was released? And it's worth noting that Windows itself didn't really show up big until Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. Win 3.1 Workgroup was released in October, 1992, and the really stable version, 3.11, in November of 1993. That was still being rolled out up to several years later (enterprises are conservative). There was app development for it, yes, but Microsoft seemed to have already established its Office strategy. (Just checked: the initial announcement was in 1988.) This is somewhat ancient history, and I rather dimly remember it (my primary platforms then were already largely server: Unix and VMS, plus others), but desktop was how I accessed the "real computer".
      - scholia 9y ago
        Microsoft was trying to get companies to write Windows software in 1986-87. At the time, it argued that developing for Windows was developing for OS/2 PM. Borland, Ashton-Tate and Lotus refused. In late 1987, Philippe Kahn said "People are afraid Microsoft is going to take control of the operating system." [1] Microsoft was afraid that IBM going to take control of the operating system. Windows 3.0 was enough of a success for Microsoft to intensify it efforts.... [1] http://voteview.uga.edu/gates.html http://voteview.uga.edu/gates.html

bboreham 9y ago

They bet on OS/2, and had a solid version for that around 1988. But nobody wanted it. Their solution was to go multi-platform, with an all-singing cross-platform super-product that would run everywhere. Except it didn't actually run anywhere; it broke under its own weight. So they were very much behind when they finally buckled down to porting the 1-2-3 codebase to Windows in 1991. Source: I was on the team that shipped the Motif and OpenLook versions of 1-2-3, separate but concurrent to the above.

mschaef 9y ago
Thanks for sharing. Was there able to be any code sharing between the Motif/OpenLook versions and the DOS/OS/2 versions? (Or just concepts?) The other thing I should've mentioned is that at the time, OS/2 did look like the surer bet than Windows. The success of Windows surprised everybody (including, I think, Microsoft.)
- yuhong 9y ago
  Indeed the OS/2 2.0 debacle is one of the worst debacles in MS's history.
  - mschaef 9y ago
    Technical issues aside, Windows by itself made MS >$100B over the last 10 years. If that's 'one of the worst debacles'... (I did like MS OS/2 2.0 though...)
    - yuhong 9y ago
      One of the reasons is the unethical attacks they did later on.
- bboreham 9y ago
  The spreadsheet engine was a port of the DOS version, which by that time was written in C. The GUI ran as a separate process and communicated with the engine via a character protocol into a bastardised "terminal driver". This fabulous kludge was driven by the testing regime: if we changed one byte of the spreadsheet engine it would trigger person-years of manual testing.