Lotus Case Study :: essays research papers

Executive Summary & Problems In The Beginning   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Lotus Development Corporation was created by Mitch Kapor, a software designer whose initial goal was to develop a sophisticated spreadsheet program. The company was founded in 1982 and its headquarters based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1983 Lotus created the first killer application, 1-2-3 DOS for the IBM PC, catapulting them into the largest software company in the world. Lotus was noted as being one of the finest franchises in their business sector. The Rise and Fall Up to 1983 Lotus operated in a largely college industry were only a handful of companies created killer apps such as WordPerfect. Between 1983-1986, Lotus had created Symphony and Jazz which were the first fully integrated application programs to combine word-processing, spreadsheets, graphics, and database management. However, the market responded negatively to the introduction of these products. During 1986, Imitation by Borland and the limited success of Symphony and Jazz prompted newly elected president Jim Manzi to approach product development in at a new angle. Jim Manzi began an acquisition program that would give Lotus, products in every applications category, ultimately resulting in Notes. . Competition Heats Up Competition in the industry was intense during 1990. Borland and Microsoft had both emerged as large competitors of Lotus. Each had develop duplicate versions of Lotus ¡Ã‚ ¦s 1-2-3- program. The popularity of Microsoft surprised the industry when the company introduced a bundled  ¡Ã‚ §suite ¡Ã‚ ¨ that included its spreadsheets, word processors, graphics package, and database manager. There strategic approach to software development and marketing led to a growing market share for the company. Initially Lotus did not write a version of 1-2-3 for Windows because they did not want to help Microsoft build their contribution margin and attain market acceptance. However, over time Lotus could not ignore the growing success of Microsoft so they eventually rushed a flawed a version of 1-2-3 for Windows to market in 1991. The release of the product caused Lotus great embarrassment, because they reacted to the situation instead pf being proactive in the beginning they made a decision and introduced a product that was not ready for market. Lost Opportunity In 1990 Lotus made an attempt to gain a significant share of the network application industry by initiating merger negotiations with Novell. The merger of the two companies would have created the largest computer software company in the world. The combined sales for Lotus and Novell in 1989 were $978 million, compared with Microsoft ¡Ã‚ ¦s $804 million during the same year.