Ashton-Tate Corp.
Software
1980-1991
Although Ashton-Tate was acquired and essentially dismantled in 1991, the Torrance-based company planted a critical seed for L.A.’s burgeoning technology industry. At its height, in fact, it was California’s largest software company.
“Ashton-Tate was the first to demonstrate that Los Angeles had what it took to become a major tech player, and not just be defined by Hollywood and by a waning aerospace industry,” said Knox Richardson, a former senior executive at the company.
Within five years of its inception in 1980, Ashton-Tate dominated the database software niche meaning programs that create business spreadsheets and other management tools, similar to IBM’s popular Lotus with its groundbreaking dBASE program for personal computers.
In 1986, the company commanded 63 percent of worldwide revenue and shipping quantities for database software, according to International Data Corp. Revenues at its height were more than $300 million.
“This company’s product was the industry standard, absolutely,” said IDC software analyst Mary Wardley. “It had a simply phenomenal presence in the market.”
Competition in the latter half of the ’80s began to erode Ashton-Tate’s market share. By 1988, it had seriously lost its grip. “My view is that when you’re so well-entrenched in the marketplace, you had to make a lot of mistakes to dislodge your position,” Richardson recalled.
Which is what Ashton-Tate did.
The company released a much-awaited updated version of dBASE IV substantially behind deadline. And because it was rushed out the door due to market pressure, the product was so flawed that it earned the de facto title of the “most buggy” piece of software in the industry’s history. The promised fixes weren’t released until a full 18 months after the product launch, generating even more criticism.
Meanwhile, competitors such as Oracle Corp. were able to snatch up disgruntled dBASE users. After some management and marketing changes, the company began to regain its footing, earning for itself the nickname “Lazarus” because of its seeming rise from the dead. Then came more trouble.
As part of a lawsuit that Ashton-Tate initiated against competitor Fox Pro for violating the dBASE patent, a judge ruled that the program was based on work done by a Jet Propulsion Laboratory employee, so the dBASE code should enter the public domain.
By this point, Borland International Inc. had swooped in to take over. Announced in June 1991, the $440 million acquisition of Ashton-Tate was billed as the largest buyout in the personal computer industry’s short history.
By the fall, Borland had dismantled the company. The Torrance headquarters were closed, as were its many development offices in Northern California, manufacturing plants in Ireland and Singapore, and sales offices around the world. Well over half of the 1,700 employees lost their jobs.
“We all said that that is one way to manage the competition: Buy it and kill it,” said IDC’s Wardley.
Ironically, dBASE failed to save Borland International. The Scotts Valley-based software company suffered its own slow decline through most of the ’90s.
Sara Fisher
