Living Videotext was a software development company founded by

Dave Winer Dave Winer (born May 2, 1955, in Queens, New York City) is an American software developer, entrepreneur, and writer who resides in New York City. Winer is noted for his contributions to outliners, scripting, content management, and web servi ...

in 1983. Its slogan was "We Make Shitty Software... With Bugs!," although the slogan was never publicly run in an ad. Located in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

, the company was founded to sell an

outliner An outliner (or outline processor) is a specialized type of text editor (word processor) used to create and edit outlines, which are text files which have a tree structure, for organization. Textual information is contained in discrete sections c ...

called ThinkTank for the Apple II series. This product was based on ideas that Winer had been developing for a few years since University. Winer ported the application to run on

IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer XT, XT, and IBM Personal Computer/AT, AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such ...

computers and after seeing a demo of

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

's near-release

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

, Winer hired his brother Peter Winer to develop a version of ThinkTank for the Macintosh, which by April 1985 had sold 30,000 copies, or to about 10% of all Mac owners. Doug Baron was also hired to work on the Macintosh version of ThinkTank. Work began on another

application at the end of 1984 called

MORE More or Mores may refer to: Computing * MORE (application), outline software for Mac OS * more (command), a shell command * MORE protocol, a routing protocol * Missouri Research and Education Network Music Albums * ''More!'' (album), by Booka S ...

, which expanded on the graphical concepts that they had started to add to ThinkTank, for example letting users easily convert outlines into bullet charts to be used in presentations. By 1986, the company had grown to fifty people. The company underwent temporary financial difficulties which were resolved upon the release of MORE in 1986. Before merging with Symantec, Winer first met with Bill Gates, the co-founder and then-President, CEO, and chair of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

, in February 1987. Gates wrote a letter of intent to purchase the company in return for shares of Microsoft. However, the deal fell through and Microsoft instead purchased Living Videotext's competitor, Forethought, Inc., makers of

Powerpoint Microsoft PowerPoint is a presentation program, created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPo ...

, in a $14-million deal. Powerpoint went on to achieve widespread popularity as part of the

Microsoft Office Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is the former name of a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketi ...

suite. After receiving a number of other offers, Living Videotext merged with Symantec in September 1987. Many of its most popular products were, with Symantec's support, later released for free as "antique versions".

References

{{Symantec Defunct software companies of the United States Companies based in Mountain View, California Companies established in 1983