The History of Superbase

Superbase has had quite an interesting history as a product. Designed back in 1988 by Precision Software Ltd in UK, it was originally created for the Amiga computer platform. By the time Windows was announced, Superbase decided to create a version that would be available on the Microsoft Windows platform.

The first Microsoft Windows versions of Superbase appeared around the end of 1989 just as Windows 2.0 (also known as Windows/286) was being released.

At the time Superbase was released on the Windows platform, there was only one other known database product that ran under Windows - Superbase and OMNIS 5 pretty much had the Windows PC desktop all to themselves. An essential difference between OMNIS 5 and Superbase is that OMNIS 5 does not have a programming language.

By the end of 1989, Superbase had to itself more than 86% of the world market share in Windows database. In the same year, Microsoft purchased 200,000 licences and sold Superbase under the name Microsoft Database. This gave Microsoft an instant database to sell while they were developing their own, which they launched in 1991 as Access.. The rest is history. Precision Software sold Superbase to Software Publishing Corporation, the publisher of Harvard Graphics, who eventually sold it to Computer Concepts Corporation in New York. In 1996 Superbase Developers plc, a company owned by a group of international developers. acquired Superbase from CCC. The company is headed by Dr Richard Tannenbaum and is based in Cambridge, UK.