Ovation Technologies was a short-lived software company founded in Canton, Massachusetts, in December 1982 to create business

productivity software Productivity software (also called personal productivity software or office productivity software) is application software used for producing information (such as documents, presentations, worksheets, databases, charts, graphs, digital paintings ...

for the then-emerging IBM PC and compatible market. Briefly named Spectrum Group Inc., the company was founded by Thomas J. Gregory, who also served as the company's president. Mike Walrod served as vice president of marketing. Their intended product, also named "Ovation", was an

integrated software Integrated software is a software for personal computers that combines the most commonly used functions of many productivity software programs into one application. The integrated software genre has been largely overshadowed by fully functional o ...

suite aiming to compete against the industry leader at the time,

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 ...

. The company raised several million in capital and secured a distribution agreement with

Tandy Corporation Tandy Corporation was an American family-owned leather goods company based in Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Tandy Leather was founded in 1919 as a leather supply store. By the end of the 1950s, under the tutelage of then-CEO Charles Tandy, ...

, including co-marketing with their line of

Tandy 2000 The Tandy 2000 is a personal computer introduced by Radio Shack in September 1983 based on the 8 MHz Intel 80186 microprocessor running MS-DOS. By comparison, the IBM PC XT (introduced in March 1983) used the older 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 pr ...

computers. The "Ovation" project was led by chief software designer Robert Kutnik. The company made impressive demonstrations, culminating with a high-profile news conference staged at Manhattan's

Windows on the World Windows on the World was a complex of dining, meeting, and entertainment venues on the top floors (106th and 107th) of the North Tower (Building One) of the original World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan. It included a restaurant calle ...

restaurant, but ultimately they were unable to ship their product, and filed for bankruptcy by the end of 1984. Ovation's most enduring claim to fame may be as what many consider to be the industry's first widely publicized and "most notorious" example of

vaporware In the computer industry, vaporware (or vapourware) is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is late or never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled. Use of the word has broade ...

References

Software companies established in 1982 Software companies disestablished in 1984 1982 establishments in Massachusetts 1984 disestablishments in Massachusetts Office suites {{ict-company-stub