Word: visicorp
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Some computer companies that tried to rush Mother Nature have ended up filing for bankruptcy or merging with other firms. Among the best-known casualties: VisiCorp, Osborne and Gavilan. Even mighty IBM is not immune to the vaporware syndrome. Two years ago the company fell so far behind schedule with the PCjr that it was forced to postpone delivery of its eagerly awaited home computer until after the Christmas sales rush. Apple, meanwhile, has still not delivered the large disk drive that was to have been the centerpiece of the Macintosh Office announced with great hoopla early in 1985. According...
Makers of the software for personal computers have also been suffering from slower than expected sales, ruinous competition and an excess of copycat products. Among the victims are two industry giants. VisiCorp, marketer of VisiCalc, a pioneering business program, has shelved plans to create its own software, cut its work force to 72 from a peak of 250 and sold the licensing rights for its troubled VisiOn package to Control Data. Another former pacesetter, Digital Research, has backed away from its ambitious move into the retail market and is focusing again on programs that are built into computers...
...proliferating number of software titles means that it is harder to strike it rich quickly. Says Ron Fisher, vice president of VisiCorp in San Jose, Calif.: "There is now a surfeit of good people with good programs." Independent programmers once received royalties as high as 37% of the wholesale price, but their commissions have slid to an average of about 10%. Concurs Gibbons of Software Publishing: "The days of giant royalty payments are gone for good...
...software grows ever more complex, it becomes harder for companies to produce error-free programs on schedule. The appearance of Apple's new Macintosh computer was delayed for two years primarily because of software problems. In late 1982 VisiCorp announced that a new software product called Visi On, which allows the operator to run and display several different business programs simultaneously, would be on sale by the summer of 1983. After spending $12 million on development, VisiCorp was unable to get it to stores until December. By then, the software had lost some of its technological edge. To remain...
While software industry growth remains steep, development and marketing costs are climbing. One of the firms hit hardest is VisiCorp, which rose to early industry leadership as the distributor of VisiCalc, the business planning program that is still the alltime bestseller, with more than 700,000 copies sold. But VisiCalc has been surpassed by newer programs like Microsoft's Multiplan, and sales are lagging. At the same time, VisiCorp has been burdened with the development woes of its elaborate Visi On program. VisiCorp is also engaged in a messy court battle with Software Arts of Wellesley, Mass., the company...