This article is more than 1 year old
Misty-eyed Ray Ozzie celebrates 25th birthday of Lotus Notes by tweeting about it ...
'Legal tussles nearly killed us but we shipped on 7 Dec 1989'
Software guru Ray Ozzie has been celebrating the upcoming 25th anniversary of Lotus Notes by telling the story of its development in a series of tweets.
He first pitched the idea of an email/collaboration app to Mitch Kapor – the founder of Lotus – in 1984.
On 7 December 1989, Lotus Notes was released. Here's a selection of some of Ozzie's tweets:
2/In July ’84 I pitched an mail/collab app to @mkapor. He liked the concept .. but its char mode UI not so much. pic.twitter.com/JlYutFrEmO
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
3/Used Mac; tuned up pitch. Closed deal & founded Iris on 12/7/84 w/ @lenkawell & @timhalvorsen. Coded like mad! pic.twitter.com/6bkJQn9aDO
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
4/@billgates convinced me to bet on pre-rel Windows. But wanted icon/desktop UX, so had to build it at app level. pic.twitter.com/olqByCEGAd
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
16/Win server, bizarrely with USER/GDI unloaded to recover memory. (We modded Win sources; MSFT accepted changes.) pic.twitter.com/nukstKTF50
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
17/Ugh; slog. Req’d appdev/mgmt features. Legal tussles. Win&OS2 cli&svrs. Nearly killed us. But SHIPPED on 12/7/89. pic.twitter.com/aonJT62Gtv
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
19/By ’93 w/ v3 we hit inflection! Value clear. LANs finally common. MSExchange appears & suddenly it's a MARKET! pic.twitter.com/dlmAKbFJPg
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
22/Mitch,Tim,Len,Iris,Lotus,IBM,Partners& you who've used our work, THANK YOU for the opp’y afforded us. Happy anniv! pic.twitter.com/cetVxy8ZB1
— Ray Ozzie (@rozzie) December 4, 2014
Happy Burpday for tomorrow, Lotus IBM Notes. ®