Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that answer the question.
Query: Who is the CEO of Ashton-Tate?
In 1990 Esber proposed a merger with Borland. During the first discussions, the board backed out and dismissed Esber thinking him crazy to entertain a merger of equals (combining the companies at existing market valuations) with the smaller competitor Borland, and on February 11, 1991 replaced him as CEO with William P. "Bill" Lyons. Lyons had been hired to run the non-dBASE business and heretofore had been unsuccessful. Lyons would ship dBASE IV 1.1, a product Esber managed and was already in beta when let go.
In May 1983 Cole changed the name of the SPI holding company to be Ashton Tate, which put the company in the position of having a mail order company "Discount Software" and "Software Distributors" as subsidiaries. The newly renamed holding company promptly sold Discount Software and Software Distributors. Cole negotiated an agreement with Wayne Ratliff in which Ratliff exchanged his future royalty stream on dBASE into equity in Ashton Tate, thereby significantly increasing the profitability of the company.
In June 1982 Cole hired Rod Turner as the director of OEM sales for Ashton-Tate.[7][8] In a few weeks Turner solved a sales commission plan issue, that had been bothering George Tate for some time, with the top performing salesperson (Barbara Weingarten, now Guerra), and Tate and Cole promoted Turner to be Vice President of world-wide sales three weeks after his initial hire. Turner was approximately the 12th employee of Ashton Tate. Since the company was truly boot-strapped, using no external venture capital, the founders did not make a practice of hiring experienced veterans, and most of the team at Ashton-Tate were young and enthusiastic, but inexperienced. Jim Taylor was responsible for product management in the early days, and worked closely with Wayne Ratliff and the other key developers on dBASE II. In 1982 Perry Lawrence and Nelson Tso were the two developers who were employed at Ashton-Tate, while Wayne Ratliff employed Jeb Long from his royalty stream.
xBase is the generic term for all programming languages that derive from the original dBASE (Ashton-Tate) programming language and database formats. These are sometimes informally known as dBASE "clones". While there was a non-commercial predecessor to the Ashton-Tate product (Vulcan written by Wayne Ratliff), most clones are based on Ashton-Tate's 1986 dBASE III+ release — scripts written in the dBASE III+ dialect are most likely to run on all the clones.
When Apple Computer was introducing the Macintosh ("Mac") in the early 1980s, Ashton-Tate was one of the "big three" software companies that Apple desperately wanted to support their new platform. When approached, Ashton-Tate indicated an interest in becoming a major player in the new market.
When a number of "clones" of dBase appeared in the 1990s, Ashton-Tate sued one of them, FoxPro, over copyrights. On December 11, 1990, Judge Hatter issued an order invalidating Ashton-Tate's copyrights in its own dBASE products. That ruling was based on a legal doctrine known as "unclean hands". Judge Hatter explained that Ashton-Tate knew that the dBase program development was based on JPLDIS, and that fact was kept hidden from the Copyright Office.
The Tate Publishing division of Ashton-Tate initially published books about Ashton-Tate's software; in October 1988 it branched out to third-party software.[22][23]
Between 1986 and 1991 the product was gradually sold to Ashton-Tate, makers of the famous dBASE who were at the time purchasing various database companies in order to fill out their portfolio. The company was soon in trouble, and Borland purchased Ashton-Tate in 1991, acquiring InterBase as part of the deal.
Ashton-Tate had been promising a new version of the core dBASE product line starting around 1986. The new version was going to be more powerful, faster, and easier to create databases with. It would have improved indexes and networking, support SQL internally as well as interacting with SQL Server, and include a compiler. Ashton-Tate announced dBASE IV in February 1988 with an anticipated release set for July of that year. dBASE IV was eventually released in October 1988 as two products: Standard and Developer's editions.
By early 1984 InfoWorld estimated that Ashton-Tate was the world's sixth-largest microcomputer-software company.[12] dBASE II reportedly had 70% of the microcomputer-database market, with more than 150,000 copies sold.[6] Ashton-Tate published a catalog listing more than 700 applications written in the language,[13] and more than 30 book, audio, video, and computer tutorials taught dBASE.[14] Other companies produced hundreds of utilities that worked with the database, which Ratliff believed contributed to Ashton-Tate's success; "You might say it's because the software is incomplete. There are 'problems' with dBASE—omissions for other software developers to fill". He noted that "If they weren't with us, they'd be against us",[1] and Cole promised to always notify third parties before announcing a new product or changing dBase's marketing.[15] In May the company announced, and in July shipped, dBASE III as the successor to dBASE II. July also saw the release of Framework, an integrated office suite developed by Forefront Corporation and funded by Ashton-Tate. These were the company's first products released with copy protection schemes in an attempt to stop software piracy.
Esber's relationship with Wayne Ratliff, however, was tumultuous, and Ratliff quit several months later. Eventually a group of sales and marketing employees left to join Ratliff at Migent Corporation to compete with Ashton Tate. Later (January 1987), Ashton-Tate would sue Migent for alleged misappropriation of trade secrets. Ratliff would eventually approach Esber about rejoining Ashton-Tate and insisting on reporting directly to him. Jeb Long took over as dBASE's main architect in Ratliff's absence.
Vulcan was sold by SCDP Systems.[3] The founders needed to change the name of the software, because Harris Corporation already had an operating system called Vulcan. Hal Pawluk, who worked for their advertising agency, suggested "dBASE", including the CamelCase.[1] He also suggested that the first release of the product "II"[2][4] would imply that it was already in its second version, and therefore would be perceived as being more reliable than a first release. The original manual was too complex from Pawluk's perspective, so he wrote a second manual, which was duly included in the package along with the first. Pawluk created the name for the new publishing company by combining George's last name with the fictional Ashton surname, purportedly because it was felt that "Ashton-Tate" sounded better, or was easier to pronounce, than "Lashlee-Tate". In reality, George Edwin Tate[5] did not have a pet parrot named Ashton, until after Hal Pawluk named the company. Because people kept calling the company asking to speak to Mr Ashton, this hidden tidbit of information became a PC industry insider joke.
Wall Street liked the deal and Borland stock would reach new highs shortly before and after the merger. Some considered the $439 million in stock they paid to be too much. Philippe Kahn, CEO of Borland, apparently did not consult with his management team prior to committing to acquire Ashton Tate over a weekend visit to Los Angeles.
Ashton-Tate was invited to participate, but instead it saw the rise of xBase as an illegal threat to its proprietary technology. In 1988 Ashton-Tate filed suit against Fox Software and Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) for copying dBase's "structure and sequence" in FoxBase+ (SCO marketed XENIX and UNIX versions of the Fox products). In December 1990, U.S. District judge Terry Hatter, Jr. dismissed Ashton-Tate's lawsuit and invalidated Ashton-Tate's copyrights for not disclosing that dBase had been based, in part, on the public domain JPLDIS. In October 1991, while the case was still under appeal, Borland International acquired Ashton-Tate, and as one of the merger's provisions the U.S. Justice Department required Borland to end the lawsuit against Fox and allow other companies to use the dBase/xBase language without the threat of legal action.
Tate and Lashlee had already built two successful start-up companies by this time—Discount Software (whose president was Ron Dennis), which was one of the first to sell PC software programs through the mail to consumers, and Software Distributors (acting CEO at the time was Linda Johnson), (later renamed SofTeam[2])—which was one of the first wholesale distributors of PC software in the world.
On Jan. 19 2012 former EVP of Engineering & Operations Eugenia Corrales was named CEO following CEO Geoff Tate returning to retirement. Tate had been CEO of Nanosolar since March 22, 2010 having been hired out of retirement as an interim CEO for his experience in leading a company into volume production as CEO of Rambus. Tate replaced co-founder Martin Roscheisen who had been the company's Chairman & CEO for the past eight years; no reason was given for Roscheisen's exit.
After giving the board a merger compensation package (including individual bonuses of $250 thousand) and giving the management team repriced options and golden parachutes, the board and Lyons reinitiated discussions with Borland, but this time structured as a take-over of Ashton-Tate with a significant premium over Ashton-Tate's current market valuation but substantially below the price Esber had negotiated.
Although Ashton-Tate humorously advertised that "Lotus uses Framework", Framework failed to gain more than a fraction of the market share needed to become a workplace standard. Lotus 1-2-3 was able to successfully capture most of the spreadsheet market and after a number of setbacks regarding Ashton-Tate's flag product, dBASE, Borland bought Ashton-Tate and later sold Framework to Selections & Functions, Inc. Present versions include the FrameworkPascal compiler which extend Framework with Windows API.
dBASE II had an unusual guarantee. Customers received a crippleware version of the software and a separate, sealed disk with the full version; they could return the unopened disk for a refund within 30 days. The guarantee likely persuaded many to risk purchasing the $700 application.[6] In 1981 the founders hired David C. Cole to be the chairman, president and CEO of their group of companies. The group was called "Software Plus." It did not trade under its own name, but was a holding company for the three startups: Discount Software, Software Distributors, and Ashton-Tate. Cole was given free rein to run the businesses, while George Tate primarily remained involved in Ashton-Tate. Lashlee was somewhat less involved on a day-to-day basis in Ashton-Tate by this time, although he was always aware of and up to speed on all three of the businesses, and was an active board member and officer of SPI.
In the winter of 1982, Turner recruited the managing director (David Imberg, now David Inbar) for Ashton-Tate's first subsidiary, Ashton-Tate UK. Turner set a goal for Inbar of achieving 15% per month compound revenue growth in the first 18 months (using the prior UK distributor's volume as a starting point), which Inbar accomplished. He subsequently expanded Ashton-Tate's operations across Europe with subsidiaries in Germany and the Netherlands. When Turner brought Inbar to the Culver City, California corporate headquarters of Ashton-Tate to be trained, the offices were so crowded that the only space available for Inbar was a small desk beside a large photocopier, with no phone line; the offices were so crowded that when Turner needed to conduct a confidential meeting, he would have it standing up in the nearby restroom.
During Esber's seven-year tenure, Ashton Tate had its most prosperous years and a few of its most controversial. It is also when Ashton-Tate became one of the "Big Three" personal computer software companies who had weathered the early 1980s "shakeout", and was considered an equal of Microsoft and Lotus Development. Under his leadership Ashton-Tate sales grew over 600% from $40M to over $318M.
When the federal judge reviewed the work of his clerks he overturned his earlier ruling, and decided to hear the case on whether or not Ashton-Tate owned the language. In April 1991, the judge vindicated Esber's decision to protect Ashton-Tate's investment of several hundred million in the development and marketing of dBase, by ruling that Ashton-Tate did own the language. Unfortunately, his earlier ruling had already done considerable damage. Eventually, as part of the merger with Borland, the US Justice Department required Borland to not assert copyright claims in menu commands and the command language of dBASE.[24] This paved the way for Microsoft to buy Fox Software.
Friday was a product conceived during the David Cole era at Ashton-Tate. Named after Robinson Crusoe's man Friday, because, by using the program, one could supposedly "get everything done by Friday!", this was a simple personal information manager (PIM) program written around 1983, years before that acronym became popular. It used a customized version of dBASE II, predating the dBASE III product. Several design flaws surfaced in beta-testing that required a major design and rewriting of code. These changes were made in-house by Jim Lewis who soon after joined Ashton-Tate as a lead developer and product manager. After a significant advertising campaign and modest interest, Friday! was eventually withdrawn from the market. (See also, Microsoft Bob.)
Esber had been trying to grow the company for years via acquisitions or combining forces with other software companies, including merger discussions with Lotus in 1985 and again in 1989. Ashton-Tate's strategically inept board passed up numerous opportunities for industry-changing mergers. Other merger discussions that Ashton-Tate's board rejected or reached an impasse on included Cullinet, Computer Associates, Informix, Symantec and Microsoft. (Microsoft would later acquire Fox Software after Borland acquired Ashton-Tate and the United States Department of Justice forced Borland to not assert ownership of the dBASE language.[21]
Ashton-Tate (Ashton-Tate Corporation) was a US-based software company best known for developing the popular dBASE database application. Ashton-Tate grew from a small garage-based company to become a multinational corporation. Once one of the "Big Three" software companies, which included Microsoft and Lotus, the company stumbled in the late 1980s and was sold to Borland in September 1991.