Lotus software

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Lotus Software (named before the 1995 takeover by IBM Lotus Development Corporation ) is a division of the IT and consulting company IBM based in Cambridge , Massachusetts .

history

Lotus Development Corporation

Mitchell Kapor , the author of the first business graphics program Tiny Troll for the Apple II computer, sold the rights to his programs VisiPlot and VisiTrend / Plot in October 1981 and founded the Lotus Development Corporation that same month . The first product from January 1982 was the Lotus Executive Briefing System , a presentation software for the Apple II . In April 1982 Sevin-Rosen Investors and KPCB invested 1 million dollars in the company, so new employees could be hired and a new company headquarters could be moved. In October 1982 the then revolutionary spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC is presented, which was delivered to the distributors from January 1983.

As the PC became more popular , so did the demand for these programs, and Lotus soon dominated the office application market , not least through other office products such as Ray Ozzie's Symphony and the Jazz Office Suite for Apple Macintosh computers.

Over time, other software companies were also acquired, and with them products such as Freelance Graphics , Ami Pro , Approach and Organizer . In the early 1990s, some of these products were bundled under the name Lotus SmartSuite . Although SmartSuite was initially more popular than Microsoft Office , Lotus lost its dominance in the desktop programs market.

In 1984, Lotus dared to invest in Ray Ozzie's startup Iris Associates , which later turned out to be an extremely important strategic move. Iris Associates developed the Lotus Notes groupware platform, which allowed them to gain important experience in the area of ​​network-based communication years before competitors in the PC world even thought of the Internet . Notes was officially launched as a product in 1989, and its position was strengthened in 1991 with the acquisition of cc: Mail . In 1994 Lotus took over Iris Associates.

Lotus software

1995 IBM acquired Lotus for a purchase price of 3.2 billion US dollars. SmartSuite shipped with some Compaq and IBM laptops, although market share has steadily declined since the product was introduced. Microsoft's competing product, Exchange , hit Lotus Notes hard, but was unable to displace Lotus Notes until 2004, 20 years after Iris was founded.

Products

  • 1982: Executive Briefing System
  • 1982: Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet
  • 1984: Lotus Symphony
  • 1985: Lotus Jazz, Lotus 1-2-3 R2, Lotus Report Writer, Lotus Signal
  • 1986: Lotus TAC, Lotus HAL, Freelance Plus, Freelance Maps, Manuscript & Measure
  • 1987: Lotus OneSource, Lotus Express, Modern Jazz
  • 1989: Lotus Notes
  • 1990: Lotus Improv
  • 1992: Lotus Organizer

Encryption

It has been repeatedly claimed that the NSA installed a backdoor into the export version of Lotus Notes . This rumor was confirmed in 1996. At that time, due to export restrictions, Lotus was not able to export software that used key lengths of more than 40 bits. After negotiations with the US government, Lotus was finally allowed to export 64-bit keys, on the condition that 24 bits of each key could be traced back by the NSA at any time. This made it possible for the NSA to crack the encryption with a time head start. The export of Lotus Notes with (then) strong encryption became legal, and the effective key length of 40 bits corresponded to the weak encryption of the previous versions of Lotus Notes.

In 2001 the American export restrictions were relaxed, according to which current versions of Lotus products contain longer keys without the influence of the NSA.

Corporate culture

Mitch Kapor

Lotus has always had a reputation for being a progressive company , just like Lotus founder Mitch Kapor . Lotus became the first major company to sponsor an AIDS fight in 1986 . In 1990, Lotus opened a full-time childcare facility for its employees. In 1992, Lotus was the first major corporation to introduce equality for homosexual partnerships for non-monetary benefits. 1998 Lotus was by the magazine Working Mother ( working mother ) chosen among the top ten companies.

The takeover by IBM was viewed with concern by the more than 4,000 employees of Lotus worldwide, as they expected a severe climate change. To the surprise of many, these fears were unfounded. Since IBM itself feared an exodus of Lotus employees, great importance was attached to treating the newly taken over employees as well as possible.

origin

Mitch Kapor named his company after the lotus position, or Padmasana . Kapor was a teacher of transcendental meditation . The competitor Borland gave its software Quattro Pro the nickname " Buddha " in order to "take the lotus position" and thus take over the market from Lotus-1-2-3.

Web links

Commons : Lotus Software  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Only the NSA can listen, that's OK ( Memento of December 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), Telepolis 1999, accessed on March 12, 2007