Lotus Development Corp released its long-awaited Unix version of Lotus 1-2-3 Release 3 yesterday with development and marketing partner Sun Microsystems (CI No 1,223). 1-2-3 for Sun comes in versions optimised for Sun’s Sparc, Motorola and 386i stations; in beta test in the US, it is planned for second quarter ships. The Sun versions use the core 1-2-3 v3 code, re-written in C prior to its launch last year, and therefore fully compatible with MS-DOS versions, using the same interface. Sun helped Lotus with additional features such as distributed network services, multiple window support, multi-tasking and support for larger memory. Sun users will be able to view up to 26 spreadsheets on a single screen with the SunView windowing system. The partners see sales both from scientific and engineering users wanting access to spreadsheets (25% of Lotus’ sales are already to this sector), and commercial users moving up to workstations or adding a Sun server to MS-DOS nets. UK pricing is UKP550 for a standard edition, UKP750 for a server, UKP395 for a Node edition (for individual networked users). Lotus plans Unix editions for IBM and DEC hardware, and for other Sparc machines such as ICL’s Unicorn, due out today. It is also working on DEC VMS and IBM 3090 versions. It first talked of a 1-2-3 for Unix back in 1987 (CI No 907).
