Software History

Ray Ozzie is a prominent American computer scientist and software architect, best known for his pioneering work in collaboration software. He was born on November 20, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, and began his programming education during high school. Ozzie gained significant recognition for developing Lotus Notes while working at Lotus Development Corporation, which integrated various collaboration functionalities. He later founded Groove Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2005, leading to his roles as chief technical officer and chief software architect at the company. During his time at Microsoft, Ozzie was instrumental in advancing cloud computing initiatives, including the development of Azure. However, he left the company in 2010, citing dissatisfaction with the pace of progress in cloud technologies. Following his departure, Ozzie founded Talko Inc. and later Blues Wireless, focusing on cellular Internet of Things solutions. As of 2024, he serves as the CEO of Blues Wireless and holds a directorship at Hewlett Packard. Ozzie is married with two children, highlighting a blend of professional achievement and personal dedication.

IBM Notes (formerly Lotus Notes) runs outdated client-server model. One option is migrating to cloud-based collaboration such as SharePoint and Office 365.

Accidental Empires -- A 1996 update to some stories from the 1991 book.

A deeper look at why IBM sold much of its aging of software products to HCL.

Lotus Development Corp. finally accepteda sweetened, $3.5 billion buyout offer from IBMlate Sunday, turning what would be the software industry's largest hostile takeover into its...

"It's fair to say that by 1995, OS/2 was dead software walking," remembers a new article from the Register (which begins with a 1995 Usenet post from Gordon Letwin, Microsoft's lead architect on the OS/2 project). But the real question is why this Microsoft-IBM collaboration on a DOS-replacing ope...

The story of VisiCalc reads like a perfect Silicon Valley origin tale—a brilliant idea born in a Harvard classroom, transformed into reality by two MIT alumni, and ultimately reshaping the entire personal computer industry. Released Read more…

IBM has a competence in acquiring software companies, beginning in 1995 with Lotus. Some lessons were well documented in a rather complete article in Strategy + Business, describing the role that J…

The VCF Forums are a part of the Vintage Computer Federation, a 501c3 non-profit educational organization.

enlyft industry research shows that IBM Lotus Notes has a market share of about 5.61% compared to leading competitors Microsoft SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook.

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