Lotus 1-2-3 Owned 70% of the Market — Then Microsoft Shipped Office

Business Onion · 2:59

In 1988, Lotus 1-2-3 was the reason businesses bought personal computers at all. Four years later it was roadkill. Big technology companies do this over and over. They own the thing everyone else has to build on — the operating system, the phone, the search box. They watch what sells on top of them, build their own version, and take the customers. Microsoft did it first. In November 1987, Computerworld put Bill Gates on the record next to Lotus CEO Jim Manzi. Gates said Microsoft would put its own programs on Windows first. Manzi picked IBM's OS/2 — then added: "I don't know anyone who's screaming for OS/2." Then Windows 3.0 came out, and in October 1990 Microsoft put Word, Excel and PowerPoint in one box called Office — $895 for all three, when Word on its own cost $495. So a company that only needed a word processor bought the box anyway, and got Excel for nothing.