Evidence receipt / belief
Published · transcript-backedDavid Rosenthal: belief
22 Apr 2024 Acquired Microsoft Volume I
“The vector that they think they're going to compete, at least in spreadsheets with VisiCalc, is that they're going to be on every platform out there. VisiCalc, I believe, was more or less basically only on the Apple II.”
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- David Rosenthal
- Attribution
- Verified speaker
- Claim type
- belief
- Recorded
- 22 Apr 2024
- Publisher
- Acquired
- Episode
- Microsoft Volume I
Transcript context
…No, these are DOS applications. It's all character mode. Yes, it is command line interface. The vector that they think they're going to compete, at least in spreadsheets with VisiCalc, is that they're going to be on every platform out there. VisiCalc, I believe, was more or less basically only on the Apple II. That doesn't end up working too well. The next generation, the IBM PC era, they make the same mistake. The application business stays focused on being on lots of machines, making software that's compatible with everything. A new company pops up called Lotus. Lotus makes the radical decision that they are going to make a spreadsheet only for the IBM PC. This was genius. This is the 1-2-3 spreadsheet. It goes on to become, at that point in time, the most successful software ever. This is wild. I can't even believe I'm about to say this, and it blew my mind when I found it in research. There are a couple of years in the late eighties, where Lotus has more revenue than Microsoft and is valued higher. Yup. In fact, the year that Microsoft went public, Lotus had more revenue than Microsoft at the IPO.…
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