Tandy’s DeskMate has also caught the attention of Lotus Development Corp, which needs all the additional marketing opportunities it can find, as it seeks to recover from the recent low point in its fortunes. The company has come out with a new low-cost version of 1-2-3 specifically for use with the Tandy DeskMate shell for MS-DOS. The Lotus Spreadsheet for DeskMate, to be sold by Radio Shack stores and other authorised Tandy dealers, is a low-end version aimed at the home, home office, and small business market where Tandy is strongest. It is based on 1-2-3 version 2.01, modified to work with the menu-driven and mouse-controlled DeskMate environment. A run-time version of DeskMate is bundled with the spreadsheet, but some 1-2-3 functions, including the facility to use macros, add-ins and expanded memory, have been omitted. But it is compatible with all other versions of 1-2-3 and will sell for $220, with deliveries to Tandy stores in the US planned to begin in the fourth quarter – one must hope the Cambridge, Massachusetts company can bring the thing in on time: work on the new version began in March according to Microbytes Daily, and the thing is currently out at beta sites.
