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- <text id=89TT0741>
- <title>
- Mar. 20, 1989: Business Notes:Software
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Mar. 20, 1989 Solving The Mysteries Of Heredity
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 58
- Business Notes
- SOFTWARE
- A $175 Million Bottleneck
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Many people in the computer industry were unhappy last week
- when shares of Microsoft fell almost 14% in one day. But no one
- felt the sting more than William Gates, 33, the boyish-looking
- co-founder and chairman of the software-manufacturing firm. His
- 38% stake in Microsoft left him nearly $175 million poorer --
- on paper. (His shares are still worth $1.1 billion.) Investors
- dumped the stock after hearing that profits were about to dip
- because of unanticipated delays in shipping two new versions of
- Microsoft's word-processing program.
- </p>
- <p> Microsoft is not the only software manufacturer in dutch.
- Many of its competitors are also having trouble getting their
- products onto store shelves. These companies are finding that
- developing successive generations of established software
- programs is a complicated and time-consuming business. The
- delays are beginning to irk mainframe- and personal-computer
- makers, whose powerful new machines cannot be fully used without
- up-to-date software. Among the more worrisome recent delays:
- Ashton-Tate's new version of a financial program hit stores
- three months behind schedule. And Lotus is almost a year late
- with its long-promised improved 1-2-3 financial spreadsheet.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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