Peter Norton Computing, Inc., was a software company founded by

Peter Norton Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Symant ...

. The first and best known software package it produced was Norton Utilities. Another successful software package was Norton Commander, especially the

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

version. In 1990, the company was acquired by Symantec. The acquired company became a division of Symantec and was renamed Peter Norton Computing Group. Most of Norton Computing's 115 employees were retained. The Symantec merger helped Norton Computing regain the market share it was losing to competitors, especially

Central Point Software Central Point Software, Inc. (CP, CPS, Central Point) was a leading software utilities maker for the PC market, supplying utilities software for the DOS and Microsoft Windows markets. It also made Apple II copy programs. Through a series of m ...

. Norton Computing's revenues tripled between June 1990 and September 1991, and by November it appeared to have regained the market lead over Central Point.

History

Peter Norton founded the company in 1982 with $30,000 and an IBM computer. The company was a pioneer in

-based utilities software. Its 1982 introduction of the Norton Utilities included Norton's UNERASE tool to retrieve erased data from DOS disks. In 1984, Norton Computing reached $1 million in revenue, and version 3.0 of the Norton Utilities was released. Norton had three clerical people working for him. He was doing all of the software development, all of the book writing, all of the manual writing and running the business. The only thing he wasn't doing was stuffing the packages. He hired his fourth employee and first programmer, Brad Kingsbury, in July 1985. John Socha, the author of Norton Commander until 1989, was hired shortly after. From November 1985 until April 1986 Warren Woodford worked at Norton Computing and created

Norton Guides Norton Guides were a product family sold by Peter Norton Computing. The guides were written in 1985 by Warren Woodford for the x86 Assembly Language, C, BASIC, and Forth languages and made available to DOS users via a terminate-and-stay-resi ...

. In late 1985, Norton hired a business manager to take care of the day-to-day operations.Investigating The Lost Files Of Peter Norton, PC Pioneer, ''Computers & Electronics'', May 1992
/ref> In 1985, Norton Computing produced the Norton Editor, a programmer's

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be ...

created by Stanley Reifel, and

, a TSR program which showed reference information for

assembly language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence b ...

and other IBM PC internals, but could also display other reference information compiled into the appropriate file format.

Norton Commander Norton Commander (NC) is a discontinued prototypical orthodox file manager (OFM), written by John Socha and released by Peter Norton Computing (later acquired in 1990 by the Symantec corporation). NC provides a text-based user interface for m ...

, a file managing tool for DOS, was introduced in 1986. In this year PNCI reached $5 million in revenues with Norton Utilities still bringing the largest parts.

PNC software launched prior to Symantec acquisition

* Norton Utilities (1982) (✓ Merged with Norton System Works) * Norton Editor (1985) *

(1985) *

(1986) ✓ * Norton Backup (1990) ✓ * Norton Utilities for Macintosh (1990) ✓ :✓ denotes software that continues to be published after the acquisition by Symantec. (Check listed for standalone and integrated components within packages)

PNC software launched after Symantec acquisition

Norton AntiVirus Norton AntiVirus is an anti-virus or anti-malware software product founded by Peter Norton, developed and distributed by Gen Digital since 1990 as part of its Norton family of computer security products. It uses signatures and heuristics to i ...

(''NAV'') * Norton AntiVirus for Mac (''NAVMAC'') *

Norton AntiVirus (Windows) Norton AntiVirus is an anti-computer virus, virus or anti-malware software product founded by Peter Norton, developed and distributed by Gen Digital since 1990 as part of its Norton (Symantec), Norton family of computer security products. It use ...

(''NavW'') *

Norton CleanSweep Norton CleanSweep, designed by Quarterdeck, was designed to aid in the removal of installed programs on Microsoft Windows. CleanSweep was acquired by Symantec, and sold as a standalone product for a period of time. As of 2009, CleanSweep current ...

(''NCS'') * Norton Crashguard (''NCG'') * Norton Desktop for DOS (''NDD'') * Norton Desktop for Apple (''NDA'') * Norton Desktop for Windows (''NDW'') *

Norton Internet Security Norton Internet Security, developed by NortonLifeLock, Symantec Corporation, is a discontinued computer program that provides malware protection and removal during a subscription period. It uses Antivirus software#Signature-based detection, signa ...

(''NIS'') * Norton Internet Security for Macintosh (''NISMAC'') *

Norton SystemWorks Norton SystemWorks is a discontinued utility software suite by Symantec Corp. It integrates three of Symantec's most popular products – Norton Utilities, Norton CrashGuard and Norton AntiVirus – into one program designed to simplify solving ...

(''NSW'') * Norton Uninstall (''NUD'') * Norton Uninstaller (''NUW'') *

Norton 360 Norton 360, developed by Symantec, was an “all-in-one” security suite for the consumer market. It was first released in 2007, but was discontinued in 2014; its features were carried over to its successor, Norton Security. In 2019, Symant ...

(''N360'') * Norton 360 Multi-Device (''N360MD'') * Norton One (''NO'') *

Norton Security Norton Security is a cross-platform security suite that provides subscription-based real-time malware prevention and removal in addition to identity theft protection and performance tuning tools. Other features include a personal firewall, emai ...

(''NS'') * Norton Security Deluxe with LifeLock Standard

References

{{Authority control Defunct software companies of the United States Gen Digital Gen Digital acquisitions Software companies established in 1982 1982 establishments in the United States

History

PNC software launched prior to Symantec acquisition

PNC software launched after Symantec acquisition

See also

References