3 ms·

Borland bought Paradox (was developed by Ansana (???)) as a me-too move when their biggest competitors Microsoft/Lotus was moving into databases.

teilo 6y ago
Borland had very little except "me too" products, TBH. Pascal, C++, etc. But Delphi was a nice system, FWIW. Of all the Borland products, this one had the longest shelf-life, now still actively developed by Embarcadero.
- wenc 6y ago
  I really don't agree and I don't think creating a product in the same category is "me-too". Borland had some truly great products back in the day. Quattro Pro had innovations that surpassed the incumbent 1-2-3's. Paradox had innovations that superseded dBASE. Turbo Pascal was a popular product on its own merit (UCSD Pascal, Quick/MS Pascal never caught on commercially). Turbo C and Quick C were competitors, and many applications back in the day used the Turbo Vision text UI. In the 1980s and early 90s, the marketplace was full of competing office products before Microsoft Office came around and dominated then scene (folks might remember Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Office). Spreadsheets weren't always synonymous Excel, nor word processors with Word.
  - teilo 6y ago
    Dude, I used to use Visicalc.
    - wenc 6y ago
      Which should help you understand my perspective better. I don’t agree that Borland “had very little except "me too" products“ just because another product in the same category existed first. Lotus 1-2-3 was essentially a clone of VisiCalc on the IBM PC but it was also its own thing.
wenc 6y ago
I don't remember this history -- Borland bought Ansa Paradox in 1987. Microsoft had no desktop database product then. It bought FoxPro in 1992 and Access was released in 1992. Lotus also had no desktop database product then. Lotus bought Approach in 1994. The dominant desktop database products of the time were dBASE/xBASE (Clipper, FoxPro etc.). Which database products from MS/Lotus were you thinking of?
- tibbydudeza 6y ago
  Recall their Sprint word processor and Quattro Pro , part of their demise was stepping out of the niche compiler market into more mainstream office market.

teilo 6y ago

Borland had very little except "me too" products, TBH. Pascal, C++, etc. But Delphi was a nice system, FWIW. Of all the Borland products, this one had the longest shelf-life, now still actively developed by Embarcadero.

wenc 6y ago
I really don't agree and I don't think creating a product in the same category is "me-too". Borland had some truly great products back in the day. Quattro Pro had innovations that surpassed the incumbent 1-2-3's. Paradox had innovations that superseded dBASE. Turbo Pascal was a popular product on its own merit (UCSD Pascal, Quick/MS Pascal never caught on commercially). Turbo C and Quick C were competitors, and many applications back in the day used the Turbo Vision text UI. In the 1980s and early 90s, the marketplace was full of competing office products before Microsoft Office came around and dominated then scene (folks might remember Lotus SmartSuite and Corel WordPerfect Office). Spreadsheets weren't always synonymous Excel, nor word processors with Word.
- teilo 6y ago
  Dude, I used to use Visicalc.
  - wenc 6y ago
    Which should help you understand my perspective better. I don’t agree that Borland “had very little except "me too" products“ just because another product in the same category existed first. Lotus 1-2-3 was essentially a clone of VisiCalc on the IBM PC but it was also its own thing.

wenc 6y ago

I don't remember this history -- Borland bought Ansa Paradox in 1987. Microsoft had no desktop database product then. It bought FoxPro in 1992 and Access was released in 1992. Lotus also had no desktop database product then. Lotus bought Approach in 1994. The dominant desktop database products of the time were dBASE/xBASE (Clipper, FoxPro etc.). Which database products from MS/Lotus were you thinking of?

tibbydudeza 6y ago
Recall their Sprint word processor and Quattro Pro , part of their demise was stepping out of the niche compiler market into more mainstream office market.