Re: XyQuest's Fate

[TBaehr@xxxxxxxx]

I was at Xyquest during the endgame. Yes, IBM's pullout from its software partnerships certainly didn't help. Joseph Kahn, writing in the Globe, compared the event like a giant killing his children when he rolled over in his sleep. Xyquest and Signature weren't the only victims.

In addition, IBM had become very much involved in product specification and review, and that had a
delaying effect on our projected time-to-market. The original XyWrite IV was to be a very limited
update in its interface, with WYSIWYG viewing and editing in only a few type sizes.

Post-IBM, Xyquest struggled along, eventually losing about half its staff to layoffs and volutary
departures. Work continued on improving Signature (which was slow and a bit buggy) and gearing up
for a Windows version. By that time, WordPerfect had pioneered its own menu-based product and (I
think) had a Windows version too. (Remember, Windows was in version 3.0 at this point, and it also
was slow and buggy.)

I heard - maybe wrongly - that The Powers That Were in the company decided to finance further
development with proceeds from current sales. Because (I assume) cash flow was a problem, nothing
was invested in advertising or promotion. And sales faltered. Our numbers - employees and dollars -
diminished even further. For example, I was the sole interface designer left from a staff that had
at one time numbered four.

Enter Kenny Frank.

He's an attorney and software buff, and I believe his vision from the start was to have Xywrite as
the text editing component of a series of vertical-market specialized document assembly products.

There were many problems. Development was in Billerica (say bill-RICK-uh), Mass., and headquarters
was in Baltimore, Maryland.

Some of us found it hard to get along with Kenny. He was kind of a 24/7 kind of guy, and I remember
chewing him out for calling me at home in the evening on a matter that could have waited until
morning. My impression of him was that he was high-energy, high-powered, full of ideas. Some of his
brainstorms could slow our development process as we tried to accommodate them. My experience with
him was that we sometimes differed on our view of the facts. Others, from what I could tell, had
similar experiences. (I've had a couple of run-ins with him since, in this forum and privately. I
think I can safely say that our mutual disrespect is just about absolute.)

John Hild, one of the co-founders and (in the eyes of some) the architect of Xyquest's demise),
left. Dave Erickson, the other co-founder and architect of just about all that was good about
XyWrite, stayed.

We kept losing good people. By the time I left to take a job at another company, the Billerica staff
was down to about half a dozen people (from 60). Our offices, once half a floor in one of those
3-story brick suburban campuses, shrank to a few rooms. Bills were going unpaid; there was a rumor
that we were behind in our rent.

The Xyquestrians were a tight-knit bunch, and we kept in touch for a few years afterward. I imagine
some of them, still living in the suburbs north of Boston, are still seeing each other.

I've probably given a far more detailed answer than you anticipated! I will caution all readers that
these are only my views and perceptions, couched in what I hope is even-handed and neutral terms.

I loved Xyquest, and I had deep respect for Dave Erickson - his knowledge, decency, likeableness,
gentleness. In so many ways, XyWrite could have been the best word processor on the planet (and in
so many ways, it still is). But the resources were never there. Even at our strongest, at 60
employees, we were competing against WordPerfect, which had something like 600 engineers working on
their product.

I don't know if Dave ever gets to read this stuff, and we haven't heard from Kenny in a while. But I
think it would be great for other Xyquestrians to check in with amplifications or corrections.

Tim Baehr