Comments on: What happened to Ashton-Tate and dBase https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-ashton-tate-and-dbase/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-happened-to-ashton-tate-and-dbase David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more Mon, 13 Oct 2025 23:13:15 +0000 hourly 1 By: S.M. Oliva https://dfarq.homeip.net/what-happened-to-ashton-tate-and-dbase/#comment-57285 Mon, 13 Oct 2025 23:13:15 +0000 https://dfarq.homeip.net/?p=39538#comment-57285 I did a deep drive into Ashton-Tate history for my own blog. Personally, my favorite detail about the company is that there never was an “Ashton.” The co-founders were George Tate and Howard Lashlee. It was an advertising executive who came up with the name Ashton-Tate, which I’ve always assumed was just because he wanted a name that started with “A” so the company would be at the top of any alphabetical list. (See Accolade, Acclaim, etc.)

As far as why the company failed, you could go back to 1984. George Tate died suddenly. A few months later, the CEO abruptly resigned. (Lashlee was never involved much with the database part of the business.) The new CEO, Ed Esber, was perfectly qualified, but he quickly got himself into an arms race with Jim Manzi over at Lotus to see who could try and expand their fiefdoms via acquisitions the quickest. Ultimately, both companies lost that race.

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