Ashton-Tate
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Ashton-Tate (Ashton-Tate Corporation) is a former US based software company best known for developing the popular dBASE database application.
The company was bought by Borland in September 1991.
Ashton-Tate was founded by George Tate and Hal Lashlee, but apparently Lashlee preferred his name not to be used, so the fictitious name Ashton was created. An early print advertisement featured a fictional character named Joe Ashton - soon, callers to Ashton-Tate tech support trying to get better service sometimes claimed they were personal friends of Joe Ashton. For a time, a large live parrot named Ashton was kept in a cage near the front door of the company. This was a joke based on many people asking where the name Ashton came from. Supposedly an attempt was made to teach Ashton the parrot to say: Framework! George Tate died suddenly in August of 1983 or 1984, and many say the company was never the same again. David Cole took over briefly, but after he suddenly left to go to Ziff-Davis, Ed Esber Jr. became CEO and the rest, as they say, is history. Oddly, George and many early Ashton-Tate employees (including later Framework and Go! whiz Bob Carr) were Scientologists. In the very early days, Ashton-Tate was actually located in three adjoining apartments in a building in the Silverlake or Eagle Rock area of Los Angeles. In its heyday (the George Tate era) company headquarters moved to a building on Jefferson Boulevard in Culver City, and finally to a brand new building in Torrance, California near the intersection of the 110 and 405 freeways. The decline of Ashton-Tate is given a full chapter in the book "In Search of Stupidity" by one-time Ashton-Tate employee or consultant Rick Chapman, although he got a few minor details wrong.
Products
- dBASE
- Framework - integrated word processor, outliner and spreadsheet application.
- InterBase - purchased from Groton Database Systems
- MultiMate - DOS-based word processor