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A comment on History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987). Parent comment

Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by nhebb on Monday September 17, 2012 @06:14AM (#4531882)
I think Quattro was the #2 (behind Lotus) for a while - ahead of Excel. Borland just seemed to have an uncanny talent for running products into the ground.
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Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by huxley on Monday September 17, 2012 @08:39AM (#4532238)
Borland certainly did, but they also had plenty of bad luck.

Just as they were getting close to finishing Quattro Pro, their head offices were hit by the 1989 World Series Earthquake (they were very close to the epicenter).

Apparently, many of their computers survived the earthquake itself but were rained on by the damaged sprinkler system and covered in mushy ceiling tile debris. They commandeered a tennis court to try to dry off, clean and revive as many of the computers as they could

They did end up releasing Quattro Pro, but then were soon sued by Lotus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_v._Borland

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Re:History Uncut: Bill Gates unveils Microsoft Excel (1987) by jonsen on Monday September 17, 2012 @09:15AM (#4532375)
Reminds me of their word processor Sprint. Quite a fancy product of its time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprint_(word_processor)

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