Adam Osborne
Encyclopedia : A : AD : ADA : Adam Osborne
Adam Osborne (March 6, 1939 – March 18, 2003) was an author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere. Osborne's financial success legitimated, in the public mind (and more important, in the investor's mind) the image of the computer innovator as swashbuckling poet and visionary. In the short run, it made it easier for the likes of Steve Jobs to find funding; and how much Jobs based his important public myth on Osborne's would be an interesting study. Alongside the myths of Einstein, Edison, Ford, Howard Hughes, Osborne placed a new variety of American hero.
Osborne's father was British and his mother was Polish. He was born in Thailand and spent much of his childhood in India after his parents became devotees of the famous sage Ramana Maharshi. He graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1961 and moved to the United States. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Delaware and was naturalized as a United States citizen on November 26, 1968. He started his career as a chemical engineer with the Shell Oil Company, but he left Shell in the early 1970s to pursue his interest in computers and technical writing. Then about ten years later he helped to found Osborne Computer Corporation. It was said early in his career as a computer entrepreneur, that he started the business because he had a vision for the future. His vision included a portable computer in which he would be the progenitor.
Computers
Osborne was known to frequent the famous Homebrew Computer Club's meetings around 1975. He was best known for creating the first commercially available portable computer, the Osborne 1, released in April 1981. It weighed 24.5 pounds (12 kg), cost US$1795—just over half the cost of a computer from other manufacturers with comparable features—and ran the popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. At its peak, Osborne Computer Corporation shipped 10,000 units of "Osborne 1" per month. For a time, it was a huge success. Osborne deserves credit for being one of the first personal computing pioneers to understand fully that there was a wide market of buyers who were not computing hobbyists: the Osborne 1 included word processing and spreadsheet software. This was amazing in an era when even business minded IBM refused to bundle hardware and software with their PCs, even going to the point of separately selling operating systems, monitors, and even cables for the monitor.It is said that in 1983, Adam Osborne bragged about two advanced new computers his company was developing. These statements destroyed consumer demand for the Osborne 1, and the resulting inventory glut forced Osborne Computer to file for bankruptcy on September 13, 1983. This phenomenon, a preannouncement of a new product causing a catastrophic collapse in demand for older ones, became known as the Osborne effect, but according to some new sources the real reason for Osborne Computer's bankruptcy was management errors. [link]
After Osborne Computer's collapse, Adam Osborne wrote a best-selling memoir of his experience, Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of the Osborne Computer Corporation with John C. Dvorak, which was published in 1985.
Publishing
Osborne was also a pioneer in the computer book field, founding a company in 1972 that specialized in easy-to-read computer manuals. By 1977, Osborne & Associates had 40 titles in its catalog. In 1979, it was bought by McGraw-Hill.In 1984, Osborne founded Paperback Software International Ltd., a company that specialized in inexpensive computer software. Its advertisements featured Osborne himself, arguing that if telephone companies applied the same logic to their pricing as software companies, a telephone would cost $600. One of its products was VP-Planner, an inexpensive clone of Lotus 1-2-3, which led to legal action. In 1987, Lotus sued Paperback Software. As a result of the lawsuit, consumer confidence waned for Paperback Software, and its revenues dropped 80% by 1989, preventing the firm from getting venture capital for expansion. In February 1990, the case went to court and on June 28, the court ruled that Paperback Software's product, by copying Lotus 1-2-3's look and menu interface, violated Lotus's copyright. Osborne stepped down from Paperback Software the same year.
Later life
In 1992, Osborne returned to India in declining health, suffering from a brain disorder that triggered frequent minor strokes. He died in obscurity on March 18, 2003, in Kodaikanal, India, aged 64.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.