AshtonTate a Timeline
In May 2026 the dBASE online store went dark, and The Register asked whether a 47-year-old database had finally died. It came back weeks later. The company that made it famous was not so lucky: Ashton-Tate disappeared in 1991.
This video follows Ashton-Tate year by year. It begins at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where JPLDIS ran on a UNIVAC mainframe, and with Wayne Ratliff, a Martin Marietta contractor who wrote a database called Vulcan in 1978 to help with an office football pool.
George Tate and Hal Lashlee took it on in 1980, from a mail-order business started in Tate's garage with $7,500. Their advertising man, Hal Pawluk, renamed it dBASE II (there never was a dBASE I) and named the company Ashton-Tate, after a partner who never existed. His 'bilge pumps' advertisement sold it for $700 by post, and the IBM PC version followed in September 1982.
Then the rise: the November 1983 share offering, a place in the 'big three' of PC software with Lotus and Microsoft, and George Tate's sudden death on 10 August 1984. Under Ed Esber came dBASE III and III Plus, Framework and MultiMate, and sales that peaked at $307.3 million in the year to January 1989, when dBASE held most of the PC database market.
And the fall: the clones (FoxBASE and Clipper), the late and faulty dBASE IV of October 1988, and a share that IDC put at 62.5% in 1985 and 40% in 1989. The copyright lawsuit against Fox Software ended with Judge Terry Hatter ruling in December 1990 that Ashton-Tate had hidden dBASE's roots in JPLDIS. Borland bought the company for about $439 million in 1991, and a Justice Department settlement opened the dBASE language to everyone.
Finally, the long fade through Inprise, KSoft, dataBased Intelligence and dBase LLC, and the .dbf file that mapping software still uses.
No figure appears without its date and source.
Educational documentary. Not financial or investment advice.
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Sources and credits
Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena - aerial view (NASA, 1961), where JPLDIS was built: NASA, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAerial_View_of_JPL_-_GPN-2000-001980.jpg
- UNIVAC 1108 mainframe (US Census Bureau, 1970s) - the kind of machine JPLDIS ran on: U.S. Census Bureau employees, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AUnivac_1108_Census_Bureau.jpg
- Adam Osborne with the Osborne 1, April 1981 - a CP/M micro of the dBASE II era: Bill Crouch (-1998), Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AAdam_Osborne_and_Osborne_1.jpg
- IBM PC 5150 with monochrome display - the machine dBASE II moved onto in 1982: Fried Dough, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIbm_computer_pc_5150_%286049156797%29.jpg
- IBM PC 5150 system with manuals and DOS guide: Vintageibmmt, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AIBM_5150_PC.JPG
- Man at a PC workstation in an office, 1987 - mid-1980s business computing: Evergreen Systems, Public domain - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMan_using_AutoCAD_%281987%29.jpg
- Spring Street federal courthouse, Los Angeles (Central District of California), where Ashton-Tate v. Fox was heard: Benoît Prieur, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASpring_Street_Courthouse_%28Main_Street%29_Los_Angeles_July_2022.JPG
- Borland Visual dBASE 5.5 installation CD (1996) - dBASE under Borland: Asanagi, CC0 - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AVisual_dBASE_5_installation_CD_%28Ja%29_2025-02-22.jpg
Primary sources
- Susan Lammers, 'Programmers at Work' (Microsoft Press, 1986), interview with Wayne Ratliff, as reproduced on foxprohistory.org - Martin Marietta contractor at JPL, IMSAI kit, football pool, first BYTE ad October 1979, thirty or forty Vulcans sold; quotation re-.
- Wikipedia, 'JPLDIS', 'dBase', 'Ashton-Tate', 'Borland' () - JPLDIS history (RETRIEVE, Thompson, Hatfield, Long, UNIVAC 1108, FORTRAN); Vulcan 1978; Harris Vulcan name clash; Torrance late 1985; Softletter 'Big Three'; $395 runtime; xBase; Inprise April 1998.
- BYTE magazine (archive.org scans): Vulcan advertisement from October 1979 ($490, SCDP Systems); 'dBASE II vs. the Bilge Pumps' by Hal Pawluk, January 1981, p.164 ($700).
- Harvard Business School case 'Ashton-Tate (A)', Shirley M. Spence under Paul R. Lawrence, 1987 - Discount Software January 1980, $7,500, 50 to 500 copies, the dBASE II and Ashton-Tate names, FY to January 1982 revenue, IBM PC version September 1982, $14 a share and $14m raised.
- SEC News Digest 83-188, 28 September 1983 - S-1 for 1,700,000 shares, filed 23 September 1983.
- Computer History Museum, Ashton-Tate corporate history report (102746512) and press release 102762624 - Software Plus formed August 1980; revenue by year; Framework March 1984; dBASE III May 1984; MultiMate $19m letter of intent (July 1985) and $22m cash (5 December 1985); dBASE III Plus November 1985; dBASE IV October 1988; version 1.1 July 1990; George Tate's death.
- Chicago Tribune, Christine Winter, 'Turmoil at the top rocks Ashton-Tate's strategic year', 5 December 1984 - age 41, Esber, Cole, Santoro, Framework and Symphony.
- Microsoft Learn, 'The History of Microsoft - 1984'; International Directory of Company Histories via FundingUniverse, 'Lotus Development Corporation' - 1984 revenues for the big three chart.
- Ashton-Tate v. Fox Software, 760 F. Supp. 831 (C.D. Cal. 1990), Caselaw Access Project - decided 11 December 1990, reconsideration denied 14 January 1991, ruling rescinded 18 April 1991; Hatter quotation.
- US Department of Justice, U.S. v. Borland International and Ashton-Tate, C 91 3666 MHP (N.D. Cal.) - complaint and stipulation 17 October 1991, Competitive Impact Statement 22 October 1991 (Fox suit filed 18 November 1988), Final Judgment 13 March 1992, section IV.
- Tech Monitor, 'Inprise Finally Sells Off dBASE to KSoft', 14 March 1999; InformationWeek, Ted Kemp, 'dBASE Assumes New Identity', 9 November 2004; dbase.com, 'Announcing dBASE PLUS' (dBase LLC formed 2012) and news page (dBASE 2019, August 2019).
- The Register, Liam Proven, 'dBase debased: Database titan fades to black after 47 years', 13 May 2026; Delphi Nightmares, 'dBase: 1979-2026', 12 April 2026; Ken Mayer, 'Ken's dBASE Page', goldenstag.net, entries 25 February to 4 August 2026.
Not regulated financial advice.