Lotus
Kapor's net from the sale of his add-on amounted to $600,000, half of which he sank into developing a spreadsheet program for the as-yet-unproven IBM PC. Introduced in early 1983, Lotus's 1-2-3 rang up a breathtaking $53 million in sales its first year. By December 1984 Kapor's venture boasted $157 million in revenues and 741 employees. Meanwhile, VisiCorp and Software Arts were divorcing in a bloody legal battle. By the spring of 1985 Lotus Development Corp. had acquired Software Arts.
Beyond
The success of Lotus ensured Kapor's place in the entrepreneurial hall of fame, but the lineage hardly ends there. Chuck Digate, who joined Lotus in 1983 to head international operations, always suspected he'd run his own business someday. He left Lotus in March 1988 to start Beyond Inc., a Cambridge, Mass., maker of high-end electronic-mail systems for local-area networks. Digate credits his success in raising venture capital ($14 million to date) and recruiting his management team (many of them Lotus alums) to his track record at Lotus. He now has 60 employees in nine locations and expects to reach $10 million in revenues this year.
Quark
Among the opportunists who might call Apple "Mother" is a Denver-based software developer named Tim Gill, who founded a company called Quark Inc. not long after Apple rolled out its first machine. In 1982 Gill's business introduced the first word-processing program for the Apple III. Quark eventually designed a desktop-publishing package called QuarkXPress. The rapidly expanding desktop-publishing market -- brought to you by Apple -- and the rousing success of Quark's publishing software catapulted Gill's company to $80 million in revenues today, with a payroll of 400 and luxuriant profit margins. Along the way, just as Apple spawned new life-forms such as Quark, Quark fostered its own entrepreneurial tidal pool.
XChange
Meet son of Quark: XChange Inc., a marketing and distribution company in San Francisco, formed in 1991 by William Buckingham to serve the Quark aftermarket. The success of QuarkXPress had created new niches for add-on programs. But the developers creating those products had no cost-effective way to reach the market. Enter XChange, now just two years old but already selling internationally and posting nearly $5 million in annual revenues -- not exactly seismic in macroeconomic terms, but plenty significant to the company's 25 employees. And to Paul Schmitt. He got a business out of it.
A Lowly Apprentice Production
A solo developer of Quark XTension products, Schmitt started A Lowly Apprentice Production out of his home, in La Jolla, Calif. Thanks to an industry pioneered by Apple, markets created by Quark, and channels opened by XChange, Schmitt was able to turn a hacking hobby into a part-time business grossing $5,000 a month last year -- enough to kiss his day job good-bye. He began calling himself president, full-time, this summer.
APPLE DESCENDANTS
A (very) partial register of Apple descendants (brief listings include company name, date founded, and location; revenues in longer listings are 1993 projections, unless noted):
1. Academic Systems Corp., 1992' Mountain View, Calif.
2. ACI, 1987 Cupertino, Calif.
3. Adobe Systems Inc., 1982, Mountain View, Calif. Employees: 1,000-plus Revenues: $265 million (FY 1992) Business: Developer and marketer of software products and technologies
4. After Hours Software, 1986, Van Nuys, Calif.
5. Aldus Corp., 1984, Seattle
6. Amanda Stories, 1987, Pacific Palisades, Calif. Employees: 1 Revenues: $40,000 Business: Author of interactive stories for children
7. Andrew Davis Associates, 1990, Southborough, Mass.
8. Applied Engineering, 1979, Dallas
9. Arborescence, 1990, San Francisco
10. Automation Group Inc., 1988, San Francisco
11. Avid Technology Inc., 1987, Tewksbury, Mass. Employees: 320 Revenues: $52 million (FY 1992) Business: Developer and supplier of digital-film, video, and audio editing systems
12. Azalea Software Inc., 1992, Seattle
13. Be Inc., 1990, San Jose, Calif.
14. Beyond Inc., 1988, Cambridge, Mass
15. Bindco Corp., 1980, Redwood City, Calif.
16. BMUG (Berkeley Macintosh Users Group), 1984, Berkeley, Calif.
17. Boston Computer Society, 1978, Cambridge, Mass. Employees: 15 Revenues: Not available Business: Nonprofit user group (25,000 members in the United States and 40 foreign countries); offers help lines, publishes newsletters, and conducts workshops and seminars
18. Caere Corp., 1986, Los Gatos, Calif.
19. Casady & Greene Inc., 1984, Salinas, Calif.
20. CE Software Inc., 1981, West Des Moines, Iowa
21. Cirrus Technology, 1987 Worcester, Mass. Employees: 4 Revenues: $500,000 Business: High-technology public-relations, marketing, and consulting firm
22. CKS Partners Inc., 1987, Campbell, Calif.
23. Claris Corp., 1987, Santa Clara, Calif.
