MicroPro International
| Company type | Public (from 1984) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software |
| Founded | 1 September 1978 in San Rafael, California, United States |
| Founder | Seymour I. Rubinstein, John Robbins Barnaby |
| Headquarters | San Rafael , United States |
Key people | Seymour I. Rubinstein (founder, former CEO), E. Glen Haney (CEO from 1983) |
| Products | WordStar, MailMerge, SpellStar, CalcStar, PlanStar, InfoStar (including DataStar and ReportStar), StarBurst |
MicroPro International Corporation was a software enterprise established in 1978 in San Rafael, California, United States. The company gained recognition primarily for its publication of WordStar, one of the pioneering word processing programs designed for personal computers.
Inception and Initial Achievements
The company was launched in September 1978 by Seymour I. Rubinstein, previously associated with IMSAI, along with programmer John Robbins Barnaby. Barnaby created WordMaster, which was subsequently improved and rebranded as WordStar, compatible with the CP/M operating system. Sales commenced in June 1979, reaching 5,000 units within eight months.
Expansion and Public Offering
Although Barnaby departed in March 1980, MicroPro experienced a significant increase in sales driven by WordStar’s sophisticated capabilities, effective marketing strategies, and OEM partnerships with firms such as Osborne Computer Corporation. The company’s revenue escalated from in 1979 to million by the fiscal year 1984, overtaking rivals like Electric Pencil. By mid-1983, WordStar had become the leading PC word processor, with 650,000 copies sold across various platforms by autumn. In that year, MicroPro commanded a 10% share of the personal computer software market.
In 1984, MicroPro became a publicly traded company and emerged as the largest software firm worldwide, holding a 23% portion of the word processing segment. The corporation secured an agreement with Kaypro Corporation to include its software suite—comprising WordStar, MailMerge, CalcStar, DataStar, and SuperSort—bundled with Kaypro machines. By early 1983, OEM sales accounted for over half of total revenue, with distributors covering most of the remainder.
Rubinstein stepped down as CEO in August 1983 and was succeeded by E. Glen Haney, who had previously served as vice president of strategic planning at Sperry Corporation. Haney brought expertise from his work on Sperry Link, an office productivity package. Rubinstein continued serving on MicroPro’s board.
NewStar and Challenges
Despite MicroPro lacking a dedicated corporate sales division until December 1983, WordStar gained traction within large enterprises. However, by 1982 numerous competitors introduced alternative word processing software, while MicroPro developed a negative reputation among its user base. In 1983, PC Magazine criticized the company’s customer support philosophy, describing it as essentially advising users to "Ask Your Dealer."
By early 1985, MicroPro had experienced four straight quarters of declining sales while competitors such as Multimate and Samna expanded their market presence. A group of ex-MicroPro employees founded NewStar and released NewWord—a WordStar clone—in September 1983. During 1984 and 1985, MicroPro refrained from launching new WordStar versions beyond 3.3, partly due to Rubinstein stepping back after suffering a heart attack in January 1984. Under new leadership, the promising office suite Starburst was discontinued; instead, the company acquired a WordStar clone and introduced WordStar 2000 in December 1984. Priced identically to WordStar 3.3 at US$495, WordStar 2000 was poorly received because it lacked compatibility with existing WordStar files and presented other issues that confused customers. Internal disputes between teams supporting WordStar and WordStar 2000 further undermined corporate stability, resulting in fiscal year 1985 sales falling to US$40 million.
In 1987—four years after the previous release—new management launched WordStar 4.0 based on NewWord following its acquisition. Meanwhile, competitors such as Word (which released four versions from 1983 to 1987) and WordPerfect (with five versions) had established themselves as market leaders. Continued internal conflicts delayed the release of WordStar 5.0 until late 1988, exacerbating sales difficulties. After rebranding itself under its flagship product’s name in 1989 as WordStar International, the company merged with SoftKey in 1993.
WordStar and Extensions
WordStar pioneered microcomputer word processing by introducing mail merge and textual WYSIWYG. A distinctive aspect was its on-screen pagination feature, which displayed page breaks based on user-specified lines per page, enabling users to visualize where pages would start and end in printed output.
SpellStar
SpellStar served as a WordStar extension providing spell-checking capabilities against a 20,000-word English lexicon, customizable word lists, or external language dictionaries. It highlighted spelling errors instantly and permitted users to review flagged words or add specialized terms such as jargon or proper names, thereby minimizing incorrect alerts.
MailMerge
From WordStar version 4 onward, MailMerge facilitated large-scale mailings by combining recipient information with template letters. This process required:
- a recipient data file formatted in comma-separated ASCII (e.g., Clients.dat), compatible with Lotus123 (*.wk1) files and allowing selective exclusion of records via flags;
- a master document containing standard text with placeholders like &TITLE&, &SURNAME&, &ADDRESS1& for inserting personalized details for each recipient.
This functionality streamlined the creation of customized mass mail correspondence for business purposes.
StarIndex
StarIndex was a tool designed for WordStar users to manage indexing and chapter organization. It automated table of contents creation by tagging chapter headings and subheadings, offering control over TOC depth. Additionally, it generated indexes by marking keywords and recording their page numbers, applying separate formatting styles to words, page numbers, and prefixes. The program also supported hierarchical outlines, appendices, and figure lists.
CalcStar
Released for CP/M in November 1981 and later for MS-DOS in April 1983, CalcStar was an introductory spreadsheet package positioned as a competitor to VisiCalc. Its shortcut keys resembled those in WordStar to ease user transition and allowed text formatting within cells, such as bold and underline. Designed for beginners, CalcStar featured a menu-driven interface with prompts guiding users through its functions.
PlanStar
Introduced in 1982, PlanStar was aimed at financial planners prioritizing data presentation over intricate computations. Users specified headers, formulas, and formatting through name–value pairs. The software supported basic graphical reports like pie charts and line graphs and could handle up to 9,999 instructions across 999 worksheets. Worksheets could be combined using functions—for example, consolidating regional income statements.
Core functions included amortization schedules, cumulative sums, forecasting models, internal rate of return calculations, linear regression analysis, identification of maxima/minima, mortgage computations, moving averages, net present value calculations, percentage operations, rounding methods, salvage value estimation, summations, and discounting. Data integration into BASIC programs was possible via the CHAIN function.
InfoStar
Debuting in early 1982, InfoStar started as a report generator but evolved into a full-featured database application suite that included components such as DataStar and ReportStar.
DataStar
Launched in 1980 and subsequently merged into InfoStar, DataStar included a form creation assistant and a data input application called FormGen, along with tools for database querying and updating.
ReportStar
Introduced in 1983 as part of the enhanced InfoStar package, ReportStar produced text-based reports derived from DataStar's database outputs.
StarBurst
Debuting in 1984, StarBurst was a menu-driven interface designed to unify MicroPro's complete range of applications. Available both as a standalone product and bundled with InfoStar under the name InfoStar+, it marked the initial personal computer office suite offering.