Forethought, Inc. was a computer software company, best known as the original developers of what is now Microsoft PowerPoint.
History
In early 1983, Rob Campbell and Taylor Pohlman, former Apple Computer executives, founded Forethought, Inc.[1] in order to develop object-oriented bit-mapped application software, which they called Foundation. Early investors included the two founders along with venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates and Lameroux & Glenn Partners. In 1984, the company was struggling in the development of Foundation, and it was decided to switch to a Macintosh publishing strategy, since that was the only computer shipping in volume that had a graphical user interface. The company published several software products in 1984 under their MacWare brand, including Factfinder.
That same year, they were introduced by Apple to a small company, Nashoba Systems, that had developed the Nutshell database for the PC. A contract was signed for Forethought to publish a Macintosh version, which shipped in 1985 as FileMaker and it soon became enormously successful.[2] Also in 1984, Forethought hired Robert Gaskins, who proposed the development of a specialized product to create presentations, code-named Presenter. Gaskins, along with Dennis Austin,