Iris Associates was an American

software development Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...

company founded in 1984. It developed the software for

Lotus Notes HCL Notes (formerly IBM Notes and Lotus Notes; see Branding below) and HCL Domino (formerly IBM Domino and Lotus Domino) are the client and server Server may refer to: Computing *Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provide ...

(subsequently IBM Notes). Iris worked under contract with

Lotus Development Lotus Software (called Lotus Development Corporation before its acquisition by IBM) was an American software company based in Massachusetts; it was "offloaded" to India's HCL Technologies in 2018. Lotus is most commonly known for the Lotus 1-2- ...

Corporation until 1994, when it was bought by Lotus.

Founding

Iris Associates was founded in

Westford, Massachusetts Westford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was at 24,643 at the time of the 2020 Census. History Westford began as 'West Chelmsford', a village in the town of Chelmsford. The village of West Chelmsfor ...

on December 7, 1984, by Ray Ozzie. Tim Halvorsen and

Len Kawell Len Kawell is an engineer and entrepreneur who once worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), where he was one of the designers of the OpenVMS, VAX/VMS operating system. He also played a key role in the development of the MicroVAX computer, VAX ...

, who joined Iris shortly afterwards in January 1985, met Ray Ozzie years before when all of them were working on the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

PLATO system Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

. They are widely regarded as the core team behind the creation of Lotus Notes. Len Kawell was the author of PDP-11 Notes and a predecessor of

VAX Notes Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until ...

, which shared similar functionality to Lotus Notes but predated the graphical interface of the PC.

Relationship with Lotus Development Corporation

The company's primary funding came from a

contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...

ual relationship with

Corporation (later known as Lotus Software), best known at the time for its

Lotus 1-2-3 Lotus 1-2-3 is a discontinued spreadsheet program from Lotus Software (later part of IBM). It was the first killer application of the IBM PC, was hugely popular in the 1980s, and significantly contributed to the success of IBM PC-compatibles i ...

spreadsheet software. Lotus funded development of Iris's product (then code-named simply "Notes") in exchange for a future option to purchase exclusive

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

, and

sales Sales are activities related to selling or the number of goods sold in a given targeted time period. The delivery of a service for a cost is also considered a sale. The seller, or the provider of the goods or services, completes a sale in r ...

rights. After this option was exercised years later by Lotus, Iris was additionally compensated through

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

on gross product sales. Lotus Notes was brought to market on Iris's 5th anniversary, December 7, 1989. The author/publisher contractual relationship between Iris Associates and Lotus Development continued until 1994, when Iris was purchased by Lotus for approximately US$84 million.

Success of Lotus Notes

Only a year later, in the face of the rapid decline of its desktop business, Lotus itself was purchased by IBM for approximately US$3.5 billion and Notes became branded as

IBM Notes HCL Notes (formerly IBM Notes and Lotus Notes; see Branding below) and HCL Domino (formerly IBM Domino and Lotus Domino) are the client and server, respectively, of a collaborative client-server software platform formerly sold by IBM, now by HCL ...

. Approximately US$3 billion of this price is generally attributed to the purchase of the Notes business. At the time of the IBM purchase, Lotus reported that Notes had approximately 2.2 million users. In 2004, nearing the 20th anniversary of the founding of Iris Associates, IBM reported that Notes has over 110 million users.

References

External links

Official history of Lotus Notes
Defunct software companies of the United States Software companies based in Massachusetts Defunct companies based in Massachusetts American companies established in 1984 Software companies established in 1984 Software companies disestablished in 1994 1984 establishments in Massachusetts 1994 disestablishments in Massachusetts Former IBM subsidiaries 1994 mergers and acquisitions {{US-software-company-stub