Taligent was founded in 1992 by Apple
Computer and IBM to help both companies address what is sometimes called the
"software crisis": the fact that, from many customers' point of view, software
applications take too long to create and maintain and are too difficult to learn
and use. This has been a familiar refrain since
the earliest days of computing, and such criticism is part of the evolution of
any new technology. But the software crisis has come to a head in the 1990s. New
customer needs in the areas of workgroup collaboration, workflow automation,
information management, multimedia, and data access and visualization are driving
market growth for 32-bit, multitasking computers and related hardware and
software, to the tune of half a trillion dollars so far in this decade.
Unfortunately, most application software for these new computers hasn't caught up
with their capabilities. Customers are clamoring for new kinds of solutions.
They're not looking for a better spreadsheet, word processor, or other "personal
productivity" software; they're looking for integrated enterprise solutions that
can handle the accelerating information needs of a global economy. The applications that customers want are very difficult to
create with traditional software development technology. Sophisticated
applications take years to develop and millions of lines of code, and when they
finally get finished they are difficult to maintain and modify for new business
requirements. At the same time, the economics of commercial software development
are exacerbating the problem. Only the largest application companies are making
money. In fiscal 1994, for example, Microsoft's revenue from the
applications portion of its business increased by more than $650 million to about
$2.9 billion, while the total revenue for the software applications
industry--including Microsoft--increased by only about $550 million to about $8.3
billion (Dataquest estimates quoted by O'Connor, 1994). In other words, the rest
of the industry experienced a collective decrease in revenue of about $100
million. Small companies are being gobbled up by larger ones or going out of
business, and even some of the larger ones are facing severe losses. Both the
risks and the price of entry for software developers who want to bring innovative
technology to market are getting higher every day. This is a problem for the
entire computer industry.
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