What Can a 50 Year Old Software Product Teach Modern SaaS Companies?
What Can a 50 Year Old Software Product Teach Modern SaaS Companies?
The software market is ever changing. The market evolution from mainframes to mini computers to PCs to generic Linux servers to cloud services (AWS, google Cloud, etc.), has driven the evolution in software technology. As Aldous Huxley noted “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.” 50 year old software products can teach modern SaaS companies about longevity.
The Story of Mark IV Introduced in 1968 and Still Going Today
Mark IV was one of the first fourth generation languages introduced in 1968 by Informatics General. It ran on IBM 360/370 mainframes. Mark IV combined a simple programming language with extensive data access tohelpcompanies launch new applications quickly. Its main benefit was allowing faster application development on the order of 6 to 10 times faster than doing a system using a 3GL, such as COBOL. When IBM unbundled software from its hardware business in 1969, Mark IV took off. It became the first independent software package to produce over $10 million of revenue in a year. Informatics was acquired by Sterling Software…
