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Millennium Group Incorporated was an early publisher of software for personal computers. Founded in 1981 and incorporated the following year,[1] Millennium was positioned as a content provider in the then-relatively new medium of interactive sofware. Until this time, software had been seen purely as a technological tool, and most software companies were founded in centers of engineering expertise. By contrast, Millennium's founders saw software as a mass-communications medium and based the company in New York City's book publishing and media community. The company was the first to publish commercially what would later be identified as an e-book — an electronic version of a previously published printed book — as well as the first widely disseminated, interactive, software-based reference work.

History

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Millennium was founded in 1981, incorporated in 1982, and financed in 1983 by James D. Wolfensohn acting in the capacity of an angel investor during the period he also was also chairman of his eponymous investment bank and had numerous other private holdings.

Millennium was one of the founding 25 members of what was then called the Software Publishers Association and is now the Software and Information Industry Association,[2] and the company was active in that association's fight against software piracy.[3] The company was the originator of the Kidware[4] registered trademark first used in connection with its line of children's educational software.

Millennium was sold in 1985 to Family Achievement Software Corp. (FASCO),[5] a California-based software company controlled by A. David Silver[6], a venture capitalist rolling up similar publishers in order to create a broader line of software titles. FASCO intended but never completed an Initial Public Offering. After New York City operations were closed in 1986, the Millennium brand for general audiences ceased use, but the Kidware brand was sold by the new owners and continued in use by succeeding acquirers of the trademark.

Positioning

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At the time, most software sold for personal computers was either a business tool or a game, aimed at either business professionals or hobbyists, and was produced by companies staffed by software engineers. By contrast, Millennium saw software as a vehicle for content delivery aimed at general consumers, and the company did almost no software programming in-house. The idea of "publishing" software was then so novel that the company founders included a hand-drawing of a 5.25" floppy disk in their business plan in order to demonstrate the intended distribution medium to potential investors whose experience was in book publishing.

Millennium acquired content by licensing subsidiary rights or by commissioning independent "authors" (teachers, in the case of its educational software). If these authors were not themselves programmers, Millennium contracted with programmers. Like a conventional book publisher, Millennium retained in house functions such as editing, permissions, art design, and marketing.

In order to leverage proximity to existing book publishers and their interest in learning about the new medium of interactive software, company founders Nicholas A. Ulanov (chairman and CEO) and David Hochman (president and COO) headquartered the company in a loft building on 22nd Street in New York City's Flatiron District, pioneering the neighborhood that later came to be called "Silicon Alley."

In a series of transactions with William Morrow & Company, then a significant independent publisher based midtown and now an imprint of HarperCollins, Millennium licensed the subsidiary rights to several existing book titles — both children's books and those for general audiences — and then published on-screen, interactive versions of them.

Works published and critical reception

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An early developer for the Apple II and later Apple computers, Millennium published both licensed and originally developed content runing on both the Apple line and (after it was introduced and achieved an installed base) the IBM PC family of personal computers.[7]

Although its operations were structured along the lines of a conventional book-publishing model, Millennium titles emphasized the interactive experience that was possible to achieve through personal-computer software. The Millennium Electronic Almanac[8] (published in 1984 and 1985 annual editions) described itself as the world's first electronic almanac. In a contemporary review, the library journal Booklist wrote about the Electronic Almanac: "An innovative melding of the Farmer's Almanac and the microcomputer, this pacakge offers the typical facts and figures of the almanac with an opportunity for the user to interact."[9] With content and programming stored on four floppy disks, it was accessed via hyperlink-style menus. Booklist continued: "The directions are easy to follow, and the use of the program is limited only by one's imagination. A title that can be used to answer questions in minutes or to provide hours of entertainment."[10] Ultimately, a copy of this title was taken in to the Smithsonian Institution's collection of pioneering reference works.

The highest-selling general-interest software title published by Millennium was The Brain Game,[11] adapted into software from a trade paperback of the same name by Rita Aero and Elliot Weiner that had been published by Morrow's Quill imprint. A contemporary review in the Wilson Library Bulletin said, "The package is well-designed: the tests are self-documenting, the menus are easy to follow, the graphics are well done and the sound can be turned off. . . . This is a professionally designed package that should prove fun and interesting to many people."[12]

Titles published in the Kidware line of children's educational software included 1 Hunter, an inteactive adaptation of the children's book title of the same name, also published by Morrow; The Three Bears,[13] an interactive presentation of the traditional fairy tale; and Concentration,[14] an implementation of the classic memory game. These were positively reviewed in library journals[15][16][17] and advertised in consumer computing magazines such as Creative Computing[18] and A+.[19]

Distribution

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Millennium software was conventionally distributed in computer and software hobbyist stores across the United States. However, in keeping with Millennium's publishing orientation, the company was also an early software participant in the supply chain for books, as publishers and distributors explored the new medium of software. The Brain Game was carried in the then-newly created software department of Waldenbooks, Barnes & Noble, Kroch's & Brentano's, and by the then-new software department of the book distributor Ingram. This title was also among the early software selections of the then-ubiquitous Book of the Month Club[20] and also of The Sharper Image mail-order catalogue, as both outlets explored the sales potential of consumer software. The Millennium Electronic Almanac was also distributed through the publisher Facts on File.[21]


References

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  1. ^ See NYS corporations record. Protected by captcha so cannot be reached directly. Search for name or DOS ID # 773831. Accessed May 2019.
  2. ^ For a reference to early history of the SPA/SIIA see the retirement notice for president Ken Wasch. Accessed May 2019.
  3. ^ See quotation of Millennium's CEO and the SPA's executive director in "Software industry's on the trail of video Robin Hoods," Chicago Tribune (reprinted from Popular Computing), Jul. 26, 1985, Friday section. Accessed via ProQuest database Document ID 290852763 on May 1, 2019.
  4. ^ See USPTO TESS trademark database record. Registration number 1375529. Accessed May 2019.
  5. ^ "Business Search - Business Entities - Business Programs | California Secretary of State". businesssearch.sos.ca.gov. Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  6. ^ "Our Team – Sante Fe Capital Group". Retrieved 2019-05-01.
  7. ^ Product catalog is available here.
  8. ^ See "I didn't know you could do that with a computer!" Compute! magazine Issue 88 September 1987 p. 40 reproduced here and accessed May 1, 2019.
  9. ^ See clipping from booklist, captured by the clipping service for Facts on File on July 1, 1985, accessed in hard copy May 2019.
  10. ^ Ibid.
  11. ^ See OCLC Worldcat record. Accessed March 2016. Crack also available here
  12. ^ See review in Wilson Library Bulletin, May 1985, p. 621. Accessed in hard copy May 2019.
  13. ^ See mention in "Computers are kids' stuff," by Ellen Roseman, The Globe and Mail, Mar. 8, 1984, p. CL.1. Accessed via ProQuest Database Document ID 387228573 on May 1, 2019. See also mention in "Software that computes for techie's on those gift lists," by Steven Kosek and Dennis Lynch, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 29, 1985, Friday section. Accessed via ProQuest Database Document ID 290887811 on May 1, 2019.
  14. ^ See OCLC Worldcat record. Accessed May 2019. Crack also available here
  15. ^ See software review School Library Journal, Oct85, Vol. 32 Issue 2, p125. Accessed via EBSCO database April 2016.
  16. ^ See software review School Library Journal, Jan86, Vol. 32 Issue 5, p38. Accessed via EBSCO database April 2016.
  17. ^ See review in Wilson Library Journal, May 1985, p. 621. Accessed in hard copy May 2019.
  18. ^ See full page ad in Creative Computing Volume 10 No. 9 September 1984 on p. 16 of this Internet Archive record Accessed May 2019.
  19. ^ See full-page ad in A+, Vol. 10, Issue 6, (June 1984), p. 105, available in this Internet Archive record. Accessed May 1, 2019.
  20. ^ See the Book of the Month Club Guide: Best Computer Books and Software Fall 1984, p. 11. Accessed in hard copy May 2019.
  21. ^ See Publishers Weekly, January 25 1985, Vol. 227, p65-65, accessed via EBSCO database April 2016. The Facts on File distributorship was also documented in the booklist review and Book of Month Club Guide, op. cit.


Category:Companies_established_in_1982 Category:Publishing Category:Software

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