Context MBA was the first

integrated software Integrated software is a software for personal computers that combines the most commonly used functions of many productivity software programs into one application. The integrated software genre has been largely overshadowed by fully functional o ...

application for personal computers, providing five functions in one program:

spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in c ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...

ing,

word processing A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Word processor (electronic device), Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicate ...

, and

communication software Communication software is used to provide remote access to systems and exchange files and messages in text, audio and/or video formats between different computers or User (computing), users. This includes terminal emulators, file transfer programs, ...

. It was first released in 1981 by Context Management Systems for the

Apple III The Apple III (styled as apple ///) is a business-oriented personal computer produced by Apple Computer and released in 1980. Running the Apple SOS operating system, it was intended as the successor to the Apple II; however, it was largely cons ...

computer, but was later ported to the Hewlett Packard 9000 / 200 series computers running Rocky Mountain BASIC and

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

platform as well. Since the program was written in

UCSD Pascal UCSD Pascal is a Pascal programming language system that runs on the UCSD p-System, a portable, highly machine-independent operating system. UCSD Pascal was first released in 1977. It was developed at the University of California, San Diego (UC ...

, it was easy to port to different platforms, but did so at the expense of performance, which was critical at the time of its release, given the limited amount of memory, processing power, and disk I/O available on a desktop computer. It was soon overtaken by

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles ...

, a more limited integrated software package, but one written in

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...

, yielding much better performance.

Reception

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

'' stated in June 1983 that Context MBA "still runs too slowly for a person accustomed to the speed of a microcomputer". It found the

the best application of the suite, describing the

as "amazingly slow" and the text editor as "clumsy and confusing". The review concluded that Context MBA "fails in two areas ... UCSD p-System simply does not produce good code", and a confusing, heavily modal user interface.

References

DOS software Spreadsheet software History of software {{business-software-stub