David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
41 years ago this week, on October 6, 1983, Lotus Development held its very successful IPO worth $5.5 billion. Founded by Mitch Kapor and Jonathan Sachs in 1982, Lotus was the publisher of a spreadsheet called Lotus 1-2-3, and two months after their IPO, they were the second largest software company in the world.
On October 5, 1992, IBM released its first three Thinkpad models. IBM had portable computers before, starting with its luggable Portable PC from 1984 and PC Convertible from 1986. But none of them had the lasting success of the Thinkpad, which IBM designed to compete head to head with Compaq’s LTE, Apple’s Powerbook, and Toshiba’s Dynabook.
35 years ago, a young system administrator named Cliff Stoll shared a story on Nova, a PBS documentary program. Stoll introduced his audience to a brave and unfamiliar world of computers, networks, and hackers. Movies about computers and hackers were nothing new, but this wasn’t a movie, and I wasn’t the target audience. This was real, and the target audience was middle-aged people like my dad.
Activision was the first independent third-party publisher of console video games, founded October 1, 1979 by a group of former Atari developers. Activision proved successful, becoming the largest and most enduring publisher of video games for both game consoles and computers of its era. What happened to Activision was its successor company, Activision Blizzard, was acquired by Microsoft on October 13, 2023, ending a 44-year run.
October 1, 2006 was a good day. It was the day that the last of the patents covering the GIF file format finally expired and GIF became free to use. Today GIF is a staple of social media, but it was also a staple of the early web, and, indeed, telecommunications before the Internet became accessible to the average household.
The IBM PS/2 line, released April 2, 1987, was IBM’s attempt to reinvigorate its aging personal computer line and fight off cloning. The line sold better than we remember. On September 30, 1988, IBM announced it had sold its 3 millionth unit. But the PS/2 failed to hold off cloning and IBM never regained the market dominance it enjoyed in the first half of the decade.
The IBM PS/2 did offer numerous enhancements over the PC line it replaced, but IBM’s customers came to resent the high price and the perception that IBM was trying to lock out third party peripherals. IBM’s decline was slow, but the PS/2 was the beginning of the end for IBM’s personal computer business.
It was on September 28, 1998 that Internet Explorer passed Netscape in market share for the first time. It took just under three years for it to go from an afterthought in the Microsoft Plus pack to the dominant browser. And that was the beginning of the end for Netscape. Internet Explorer held the position until April 30, 2012, when Chrome passed it for the first time. They jockeyed for position until May 14, 2012, when Chrome emerged with the lead.
I keep flip-flopping on whether controlling the browser matters as much now as it did in 1998. But it mattered for different reasons in 1998.
Irving Gould, born September 26, 1919, was a Canadian financier and chairman of Commodore International. Although it’s an oversimplification, journalist Robert X. Cringely dismissed the once high-flying computer company, which had 60% of the market in 1984, as Irving Gould’s stock scam.
Gould was a bit of an odd fit to be running a computer company. He knew finance, but admitted in 1988 that he didn’t know how to use a computer.
On September 25, 1928, Motorola was founded. Retro computer enthusiasts think of Motorola as a CPU manufacturer, and to a lesser degree, perhaps as a computer manufacturer. But its primary line of business for the majority of its existence was another electronic device: radio.
On September 24, 1998, Ebay held its IPO at $18 per share, reaching $53 per share in its first day, making founder Pierre Omidyar and president Jeffrey Skoll instant billionaires. Ebay’s first annual report listed the company’s dependence on the continued strength of the Beanie Baby market as a risk factor. Needless to say, Ebay overcame both the Beanie Baby bubble bursting and the dotcom bubble bursting, coming out on the other side as one of the few survivors of the dotcom era.