Dan Bricklin comes to mind every time I encounter yet another addition to ever growing miasma of flawed internet/ebusiness/web business plan insurance policies (nee. patents). The creator of the first electronic spreadsheet product (VisiCalc) writes a great essay about why VisiCalc wasn't patented.
"The invention of the electronic spreadsheet itself is an act of genius for which Dan deserves enormous credit"
--Mitch Kapor, Creator of Lotus 1-2-3
From the industry hall of fame article about Dan is the following excerpt:
Bricklin is the father of the modern PC business software marketplace. The old master of the strange mix of art, science and commerce that is software development. It is no mistake Bricklin's first company was called Software Arts.
Besides creating the spreadsheet, Bricklin developed or played a role in the development of the early Digital Equipment Corp. word processor; a PC demo program that is still considered a breakthrough in corporate America for its prototyping capabilities; a pen-based spreadsheet that was 10 years ahead of its time; a snazzy, software print utility; and, most recently, a product, Trellix, that makes it easier to create, post and edit Internet documents.
Dan has moved on from Trellix.
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