Downfall
While Ashton-Tate's downfall can be attributed to several factors, chief among them were:
- the over reliance on a single-product line (dBASE),
- the poorly executed release of dBASE IV 1.0, and
- a focus on future products without addressing the needs of the current customers.
- the departure of Wayne Ratliff.
Any one of these would have been a surmountable problem, but combined they brought about the swift decline of the company.
Ashton-Tate's dependence on dBASE is understandable. It was one of the earliest killer applications in the CP/M world, along with WordStar and (on other platforms) VisiCalc, and was able to make the transition to the IBM PC to maintain its dominance. Its success alone is what created and sustained the company through the first nine years. However, the over reliance on dBASE for revenue had a catastrophic effect on the company when dBASE IV sales tanked.
In the end, the poor quality and extremely late release of dBASE IV drove existing customers away and kept new ones from accepting it. This loss of revenue for the cash cow was too much for the company to bear, and combined with management missteps, eventually lead to the sale to the upstart Borland International.
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Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)