VisiCorp,[1] originally Personal Software, was an early personal computer software publisher. Its most famous products were Microchess,[2] Visi On[3][4] and VisiCalc.[5]
History
Personal Software was founded in 1977[6] by Dan Fylstra. In 1978, it merged with Peter R. Jennings's Toronto-based software publisher Micro-Ware, with the two taking a 50% ownership each in the resulting company and Personal Software becoming the name of the combined company. It continued to publish the software from its original constituents, including Jennings' Microchess program for the MOS Technology KIM-1 computer, and later Commodore PET, Apple II, TRS-80, and Atari 8-bit computers. In 1979 it published the very successful VisiCalc developed by Software Arts, and in 1980 received outside investment from Arthur Rock and Venrock. That year management decided to focus on business applications, and shifted from mail order to regional software distributors and direct sales. Two thirds of revenue came from direct sales, and one third from contract or OEM sales. In May 1981 the company began advertising other software with the "Visi" name, such as VisiDex, VisiFile, and VisiWord.[7] It sold VisiCalc directly to dealers and through distributors, as well as OEMs such as Apple Computer, IBM
References
- Andrew Pollack. How a software winner went sour The New York Times, February 26, 1984^
- Oral History of Peter Jennings | Mastering the Game | Computer History Museum^
- Phil Lemmons. A Guided Tour of Visi On BYTE, June 1983, retrieved 20 October 2013