Lotus Purchases Approach

June 1993

Lotus has purchased Approach, a popular low-end database product, from Approach Software, Redwood City, California. This would allow the 1-2-3 publisher to either extend its existing office suite of spreadsheet/word processor/graphics package to include a data base product or, a la Microsoft, to offer two suites, one for individual users and one for business users, the latter with the database product included. This permits differential pricing. With the suites now amounting to a very substantial portion of the major vendors' application software business, protecting the territory with additional software, developed or acquired, becomes an important consideration.

All of this is a bonanza for users who get less expensive software (often at half price or less) plus an attempt by the suite vendor to sweeten the pot with better cross-application integration and common interfaces (at least in the Microsoft and Lotus cases, so far; the Borland Office includes WordPerfect, with extra integration work done by both vendors, but each product continuing its current --and well known -- interface).

Of course, nothing prevents Lotus from also continuing to sell Approach in the Windows database market as a low-end standalone product.

But we suspect that if it hadn't been for the suites market, Lotus would have felt a database acquisition with less urgency. The Office Suites seem likely to continue to meet with sweet success -- and their importance to the major vendors is now significantly affecting overall strategy.

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