VisiCorp was an early

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consist ...

publisher. Its most famous products were Microchess, Visi On and VisiCalc. It was founded in 1976 by

Dan Fylstra Dan Fylstra is a pioneer of the software products industry. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1975 he was a founding associate editor of ''Byte'' magazine. In 1978 he co-founded Personal Software, and that year reviewed ...

and

Peter R. Jennings Peter R. Jennings (born 1950) is a Canadian physicist, scientist, inventor, software developer, computer chess programmer, and entrepreneur. He is best known for creating MicroChess, the first microcomputer game to be sold commercially in 1976. B ...

as Personal Software, and first published Jennings' Microchess program for the

MOS Technology MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics, was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania. It is mos ...

KIM-1 The KIM-1, short for ''Keyboard Input Monitor'', is a small 6502-based single-board computer developed and produced by MOS Technology, Inc. and launched in 1976. It was very successful in that period, due to its low price (thanks to the inexp ...

computer, and later

Commodore PET The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, ...

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

TRS-80 The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of ' ...

and

Atari 8-bit The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE ...

. In 1979 it released VisiCalc, which would be so successful that in 1982 the company was renamed VisiCorp Personal Software, Inc.. :* VisiCalc was the first electronic

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 ...

for personal computers, developed by Software Arts and published by VisiCorp. :* Visi On was the first

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

for the IBM PC.

Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...

came to see Visi On at a trade show, and this seems what inspired him to create a windowed GUI for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

. VisiCorp was larger than Microsoft at the time, and the two companies entered negotiations to merge, but could not agree on who would sit on the board of directors.

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

when it was released included a wide range of drivers, so it could run on many different PC's, while Visi On cost more, and had stricter system requirements. Lotus released

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 i ...

in 1983. Microsoft eventually released its own spreadsheet

Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows, Windows, macOS, Android (operating system), Android and iOS. It features calculation or computation capabilities, graphing tools, pivot tables, and a macro (comp ...

. Early alumni of this company included

Ed Esber Edward M. Esber, Jr. (born 1952) is semi-retired in Park City, Utah. Ed spends his time helping the State of Utah, Utah Law enforcement and the Silicon Slopes entrepreneur community in Utah. Summary As a PC industry veteran, he pioneered the ...

who would later run Ashton-Tate, Bill Coleman who would found

BEA Systems BEA Systems, Inc. was a company that specialized in enterprise infrastructure software products which was wholly acquired by Oracle Corporation on April 29, 2008. History BEA began as a software company, founded in 1995 and headquartered in ...

Mitch Kapor Mitchell David Kapor ( ; born November 1, 1950) is an American entrepreneur best known for his work as an application developer in the early days of the personal computer software industry, later founding Lotus, where he was instrumental in deve ...

founder of

Lotus Software Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1- ...

and the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...

, Rich Melmon who would co-found

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

, Bruce Wallace author of Asteroids in Space, and Brad Templeton who would found early

dot-com company A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com, dot com, dotcom or .com), is a company that does most of its business on the Internet, usually through a website on the World Wide Web that uses the popular top-level domain ". ...

ClariNet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...

and was the director of the

from 2000 to 2010. VisiCorp agreed in 1979 to pay 36-50% of VisiCalc revenue to Software Arts, compared to typical software royalties of 8-12%. It composed 70% of VisiCorp revenue in 1982 and 58% in 1983. By 1984 ''InfoWorld'' stated that although VisiCorp's $43 million in 1983 sales made it the world's fifth-largest microcomputer-software company, it was "a company under siege" with "rapidly declining" VisiCalc sales and mediocre Visi On sales. The magazine wrote that "VisiCorp's auspicious climb and subsequent backslide will no doubt become a ''How Not To'' primer for software companies of the future, much like Osborne Computer's story has become the ''How Not To'' for the hardware industry." VisiCorp was sold to Paladin Software after a legal feud between Software Arts and VisiCorp.

References

Defunct computer companies based in Massachusetts Software companies disestablished in 1984 Software companies established in 1976 {{ict-company-stub