Notes From The Lotus 25th

As expected, The Lotus 25th Anniversary party was quite an event.

Mitchell Kapor—in Hawaiian shirt—was there. Jim Manzi was there. Ray Ozzie was there.

John Landry. Ditto. Bob Weiler. Don Bulens. Irene Greif. June Rokoff. Frank Ingari. Frank Moss. Deb Besemer. Check, check, check, check. You get the picture.

In all an estimated 600-plus former Lotus Development (ex-Loti) and even a few current IBMers and various hangers on showed up at the Cambridge Hyatt Saturday night.

Bewildered non-affiliated hotel guests asked if it was a class reunion. Pretty close.

Judging from this crowd, Lotus was one helluva place to work in its heyday.

Kapor recounted during "the employee meeting" period, how Lotus had expected to make $3 million in the first year on 1-2-3, and was shocked when it pre-sold 900,000 copies over a few days at Comdex. In those days disk duping was a significant logistical problem. Kapor said 1-2-3 ended up making $53 million in that first year—I think--but it's a bit fuzzy.

There was a comment about a few-years-older Lotus' which saw its mission as stopping Windows. Hmmm..

Memories flowed. On screen vignettes feature the fifth anniversary shindig starring the Pointer Sisters. The tenth brought Ray Charles and Gladys Knight (and the never"forgotten Manzi-as-Aretha-Franklin) to the Boston Garden.

It's hard to imagine another tech company with a fan base as enthusiastic and loyal as this one was. Lotus was long a bastion of progressive employment policies—the "doing well while doing good" ethic. And, Kathy Hayner, Carol Gunst, Reed Sturtevant, Chris Wraight showed that the Lotus legacy of great parties has outlived the company itself.

Check out Flickr for party pix.