the.com/borland
the company that made 1980s programmers rich on turbo pascal and then lost the plot entirely.
means a software company famous for cheap, blazingly fast developer tools that briefly out-competed microsoft before fading into acquisition history.
from founded 1983 by philippe kahn, a french expat who sold turbo pascal for 49.99 dollars, undercutting rivals charging hundreds and rewriting the rules of software pricing.
turbo pascal price49.99 dollars, a tenth of competitors cost
headquarters lookscotts valley campus shaped like a castle
name originkahn wanted borland to sound serious, corporate
rebrandrenamed inprise in 1998, later reversed the decision
for instance
turbo pascal — 1983 compiler that ran in seconds on a floppy-disk pc
quattro pro — 1988 spreadsheet that fought lotus and excel head-on
delphi — 1995 rad tool that made object pascal a gui powerhouse
dbase acquisition — bought ashton-tate in 1991, inherited a dying database empire