Applix Alis
Finally, some answers in Wonderland
The Company
Applix, Inc. was founded on March 4, 1983 by Jitendra Saxena. According to their site from the 1990s, the goal of the company was “to develop and market software applications for the UNIX market”. (Amazingly, the site is still up.) The company’s first product was the Alis office automation system. Applix was purchased by Cognos, which rebranded all of the Applis products. The following year, IBM purchased Cognos itself.
Let’s take a quick look at the founder: Jitendra Saxena. After graduating from college in India, he came to the US for higher education. According to his alma mater, Applix “pioneered decision support applications for the open environments”.
His name appears on two government documents, based on my research. The first is an employment agreement between Mr. Saxena and Applix. He is also quoted in the USA v. Microsoft case:
Jitendra Saxena, CEO of Applix, which offered an office productivity product for a "thin client" or browser-based client, described the situation from the point of view of a developer of a new product as a "vicious cycle."
"...if most of the applications are running on Windows today, then the tendency for more and more of the users to require Windows, and then it is a vicious cycle. Very soon everybody requires Windows, and all the software development companies like us have to support Windows." (Jitendra Saxena 4/17/98 Dep. Tr. 39.)
Saxena underlined his support of open standards in the September 1, 1988 issue of Datamation:
Open standards also save ISVs and WARs huge sums. Jit Saxena, president and CEO of Applix, Westboro, Mass., has begun to make inroads into the commercial arena with his office automation suite, Alis. “I committed to Unix in 1984,” he says, “because I didn’t see any great future for proprietary systems. But back then, there weren’t any standard windowing products, network file systems, and networking interfaces, so we had to write our own.” Saxena estimates that Alis cost 10 times more to develop than it would in today’s more standardized environment.
The Application
So, what exactly was Alis? I think the July 30, 1984 issue of ElectronicsWeek had the best summary:
An office software system called Alis offers computer intelligence, communications facilities for group support, a multiwindow user interface, and a portable open-system design. With it, users can combine text, drawings, business graphics, spreadsheets, and data-base information into one document and still be able to edit each separate portion in its original form.
Written in C and running under the AT&T Bell Laboratories’ Unix operating system, Alis can support Unix-based bit-mapped work stations or personal computers, as well as multiuser Unix systems supporting users at terminals. An intelligent document composer with multiple fonts provides continuous formatting assistance during text creation and editing.
Available to original-equipment manufacturers in November, Alis costs $1,350 per user for bit-mapped work stations and $900 per user for terminal-based users.
Datamation also had a good write-up in their October 15, 1984 issue:
Alis is a Unix-based office software system targeted for resale by large OEMs. The package combines the advantages of integrated PC applications with information-sharing benefits of communication-based OA systems.
The product introduces a concept called Active Integration. This allows users to combine different types of information such as text, drawings and business graphics, spreadsheets, and database information into a single document, while retaining the ability to edit each kind of information in its original form. The package also has an intelligent document composer with multiple font support.
Another feature is universal graphics editing, or the ability to edit all graphics in a consistent graphical way. It combines a freestyle drawing capability with the ability to draw standard business charts automatically, and provides a consistent way to edit graphical information. The spreadsheet has a built-in equation-solving capability and automatic interspreadsheet references. The database allows for the management of office information. The system also features information sharing and electronic mail.
The product has a feature called automatic office assistants. It monitors information within the office network. If information is changed in a shared filing cabinet all users, if desired, will be automatically notified of the change. The user interface is consistent across all applications. The software also has a multi-window environment.
Alis is priced at $1,350 per user for bit-mapped workstations and $900 per user for terminal-based systems, Applix INC., Southboro, Mass.
Mini-Micro Systems mentioned Alis in their April 1985 issue in their article “Integrated Software Spurs Mini Market”. Michael Tucker wrote:
Applix, Westboro, Mass., has been marketing a UNIX-based package known as Alis exclusively through OEMs since last November. Alis contains, among other things, a word processor, a graphics editor, a spreadsheet, a personal database and an electronic-mail facility. Users can share information, and Alis can keep tabs on which files are being swapped by whom. And because the product is meant for OEMs, Applix has worked hard to install cross-vendor links. “We like to think,“ says John Butler, Applix’s vice president of marketing, “that the strategic advantage of this product is in its ability to deliver a single office system across a broad range of hardware.”
In 1988, Applix announced that Alis would be available on the VMS operating system for VAX systems starting at $3,000. The following year, MicroTimes noted that Alis could run “on networked DOS-based computers, Ultrix and VAX/VMS systems from DEC, and UNIX-based systems from IBM, Sun, H-P/Apollo, and other vendors.” Finally, I found a Sun Microsystems manual from 1988 that mentions a software package named SunAlis that “is derived from Alis”. I was unable to discover anymore information.
What’s in a name?
I’m sure that you noticed the Alice in Wonderland imagery in the ad. So did Michael Tucker from Mini-Micro Systems:
Applix Inc., meanwhile, markets Alis, a much larger UNIX-based office-automation package. The company says Alis is designed to bring the advantages of personal computers—strong graphics, user-friendliness, and so on—to multiuser machines.
Where Higgins is a butler, Alis is like Alice of Alice in Wonderland. Applix’s advertising literature shows Lewis Carroll’s familar heroine as a Victorian yuppie. She carries a briefcase while confronting the hookah-smoking caterpiller, or she sits before a terminal at the Mad Hatter's board meeting. The trademark for the product is the name “Alis" with the “i" dotted by the Cheshire Cat's levitating grin and nose whiskers.
Did you ever use Alis? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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