The computing market continued to mature as Windows asserted its position as the dominant desktop OS. The story of the downfall of Lotus 1-2-3 is a common one experienced by first movers who lose sight of evolving markets. At the time, I was using a Mac Plus and remember jealously eyeing my PC brethren who had access to 1-2-3 while I awaited the long promised Mac version then called Lotus Jazz. I remember 1-2-3 and being amazed about its functionality. Lotus’s application rapidly overtook Visicalc in sales and would maintain in a dominant role for years to come. 1-2-3 brought significant improvements in speed, functionality and reliability to the market and became an instant hit when it was launched in January of 1983. Mitch Kapor founded Lotus Corporation and one of its first products was Lotus 1-2-3 which was a spreadsheet program that stayed close to the Visicalc model. It was instantly a best seller however, it still had significant limitations. Out of this chaos of technology and software development emerged Visicalc which was the first spreadsheet program and was the first killer application for personal computers. Just to be clear, these machines were barely more powerful than today’s desktop calculators and lacked virtually all of the advanced technologies we take for granted today however, at the time they were cutting edge. In the early days of personal computing, users and vendors were struggling to justify the existence of the complex and powerful machines like the Apple 2 or IBM PC.
This is no surprise as the product has been in a long decline however, I cannot help but feel a bit melancholy because Lotus 1-2-3 was a killer app in the day and it is sad to see it slide into obscurity and now cancellation. I recently encountered this article over at The Register that discusses how the final version of Lotus 1-2-3 just reached end of life and so is effectively dead.
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