Lotus Development, an IBM subsidiary that does business as Lotus
Software, makes software that helps business people collaborate across
corporate networks. Its main offering is communication and
collaboration platform Lotus Notes. Other products include messaging
applications (Domino), desktop office productivity tools (Organizer),
and Web-based learning software (Virtual Classroom). The company also
offers consulting, support, and training servi...
more
Lotus Development, an IBM subsidiary that does business as Lotus
Software, makes software that helps business people collaborate across
corporate networks. Its main offering is communication and
collaboration platform Lotus Notes. Other products include messaging
applications (Domino), desktop office productivity tools (Organizer),
and Web-based learning software (Virtual Classroom). The company also
offers consulting, support, and training services. Lotus sells its
products directly and through partners and distributors.
Lotus was founded in April 1982 by 32-year-old Mitchell D. Kapor, whose
previous experience included writing two business programs for
VisiCorp, an early personal computer software company: VisiTrend, which
covered statistics, and VisiPlot, a program for creating business
charts. Kapor made $500,000 on the spreadsheet before VisiCorp bought
him out for $1.7 million. Setting his sights on a spreadsheet that
translated numbers into graphs, Kapor joined forces with Jonathan
Sachs, a programmer who had already envisioned a new spreadsheet and
was looking for someone to help him market it. Sachs spent the next ten
months writing Lotus 1-2-3 in assembly language for the IBM personal
computer. Aside from the graphics, Kapor and Sachs concentrated on
making 1-2-3 a fast recalculator. They took advantage of the new
personal computers (PCs) with 256K of memory, which enabled the
software to far exceed the spreadsheet capabilities of the similar
VisiCalc.
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