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Lotus Development Superseded

Lotus Development
KindCompany
Founded1982
Defunct1995
StatusSuperseded
FoundersMitch Kapor
FieldSoftware
Sourceen.wikipedia.org ↗

1-2-3 — the spreadsheet that sold IBM PCs to every business in America, then Notes. Bought by IBM in 1995; the brand dissolved by 2013.

Acquired by IBM

Kapor — a former transcendental-meditation teacher who wrote VisiPlot for VisiCorp — founded Lotus in 1982 with Jonathan Sachs. 1-2-3 (1983) combined spreadsheet, graphics, and database, sold $53 million in year one, and made the IBM PC a business necessity.

Lotus bought Notes in 1989 (groupware), missed Windows (Excel won), and IBM bought it for $3.5 billion in 1995 — then the largest software acquisition. Lotus Notes lingered until 2018; the brand was retired entirely.

Sources

  1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_Software