Hanging tough: Quarterdeck beats the big boys at their own game.

Hanging tough: Quarterdeck beats the big boys at their own game

One single announcement almost wiped out Quarterdeck Office Systems in August 1984. BY JAY PINKERT

At that time, IBM introduced TopView, a multi-tasking, windowing program described by the company as a standard and one of its most strategic products ever for its industry-standard DOS operating system. Multi-tasking and windowing programs allow computer users to view and transfer data from several different programs at the same time.

Only a few months earlier, Quarterdeck's own program along these lines, DESQ, had hit the shelves after much advance acclaim. "After the (IBM) announcement, sales dropped right off and dealers started to return the product," says Therese Myers, president and co-founder of Quarterdeck.

The company's future seemed asssured a year earlier. Named "Software Hit of the Show" at the spring 1983 Computer Dealers Exposition, Quarterdeck's DESQ program was impressive enough to attract $5.5 million in venture capital to the software developer that started in 1981 in a Santa Monica garage.

But roughly six months after the IBM announcement, sales of DESQ picked up again

TopView turned out to be a flop, as luck would have it.

"The product just wasn't as good as they (IBM) had claimed," says Myers. "What TopView did for us was to sell the concept."

At tht point, Quarterdeck reworked DESQ to accommodate Top View-specific programs and become 100 percent compatible again. "Complete IBM compatibility has always been our major premise," Myers says.

In July 1985, the company came out with a improved version of the DESQ, dubbed DESQview (the similarity in names was no accident). "It was a hit from the day it started shipping." Myers says. Judging from InfoWorld's designation of DESQview was as "Best New Idea of 1986." Myers assessment is not idle bragging.

The product was also helping along by applying a pricing lesson learned from the TopView experience. Whereas DESQ had cost $395 and Top View related for $225, DESQview came in at $99.95. It now sells for $129.95.

"That made it easy to buy the idea," notes Myers. The manual also was trimmed down to make it more accessible.

Since July 1985, DESQview has sold about 700,000 units, nearly half of them this year.

But Quarterdeck is far from taking the market by storm. It still has to take on the nation's software Goliath for this market niche. Microsoft Corp., the leading software company and the one that develop DOS with IBM, has it sown multi-tasking and windowing product: Windows.

One of the first windows Windows created was one of opportunity for Quarterdeck. Again, Quarterdeck's self-described "guerrilla" marketing tactics allowed the company to make the best of a potentially bad situation.

"Windows was incredibly late," says Mary Rich, an El Segundo-based computer consultant and chairperson of the 1986 National Computer Conference. "DESQview beat ikt (to the market) by quite a bit."

Head starts are very important in software markets, says Rich, because once a user sets up a system around on software package, he is unlikely to switch. "If you can get a company to use your product, it will be difficult for later programs to get it to change," she says. "Even at a small office, retraining and redocumenting for the system takes a lot of time and effort."

Now that Windows is becoming more available, DESQview still has an edge: it's better. According to Rich, DESQview's has the advantage of speed. "It is faster than Windows, which is very important in a multi-tasking evironment. It makes people ant to use it more."

But Windows is slow for a good reason: It is designed to run on QS/2, IBM's new operating system that will replace DOS for the PS/2 line of microcomputers. Microsoft was in on the development of OS/2. Since OS/2 will require all new programs, DESQview as it is now will be shut out while Windows will be able to run on either system.

What Quarterdeck and other manufacturers of DOS-based software are banking on is that OS/2 will not catch on that strong or quickly, and that the DOS-user market will remain strong. "Young companies that did not grow up with Big Blue mainframes are more likely to think that IBM is not the real answer for everything. There will be great reluctance to change." says Rich. "The question is whether that is going to be a big enough market to keep companies like Quarterdeck going."

While it certainly is something to be reckoned with, OS/2 might turn out to be another TopView-style situation for Quarterdeck, says Gary Saxer, the comnpany's technical marketing manager. "No one wants to develop software for an unknown market," he says. As with any new product, no one will tip his hand as to what that company is doing. "We have our own proprietary methods and we're not worried," says Saxer.

Myers believes it will take a "blockbuster" program for OS/2 -- on the order of 1-2-3 Lotus or dBase III -- to encourage more software development for the new system.

'If you can get a company to use your product, it will be difficult for later programs to get it to change. Retraining takes a lot fo time and effort'

PHOTO: Window of opportunity: DESQview (above, below) was popular from day one

PHOTO: Hit maker: Quarterdeck President Therese Myers