Editing Lotus Software (section)

===Diversification and acquisition by IBM===
In the 1990s, to compete with Microsoft's Windows applications, Lotus had to buy in products such as Ami Pro (word processor),<ref>"Ami Pro, also called just Ami initially, was a word processor sold by Samna and later Lotus Software, where it became Lotus Word Pro." {{cite web
|title=AmiPro 3.x  |url=https://winworldpc.com/product/amipro/3x  |website=WinWorldPC.com}}</ref><ref>"There is much to recommend Ami Pro 2.0, the latest version of Lotus Corp.'s high-powered word processing program for Windows.  {{cite news  |newspaper=LA Times
|title=Lotus Ami Pro Program Is Hard to Beat |date=October 24, 1991
|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-24-fi-459-story.html}}</ref> Approach (database), and Threadz, which became [[Lotus Organizer]]. Several applications (1-2-3, Freelance Graphics, Ami Pro, Approach, and [[Lotus Organizer]]) were bundled together under the name [[Lotus SmartSuite]]. Although SmartSuite was bundled cheaply with many PCs and may initially have been more popular than [[Microsoft Office]], Lotus quickly lost its dominance in the desktop applications market with the transition from 16- to [[32-bit]] applications running on [[Windows 95]]. In large part due to its focusing much of its development resources on a suite of applications for IBM's new (and eventually commercially unsuccessful) [[OS/2]] operating system, Lotus was late in delivering its suite of 32-bit products and failed to capitalize on the transition to the new version of Windows. The last significant new release was the SmartSuite Millennium Edition, released in 1999.<ref>{{cite web
|website=CNN.com
|date=December 9, 1999
|title=8 easy Y2K fixes
|url=http://archives.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/09/y2k.fixes.idg/index.html
|access-date=August 1, 2018
|archive-date=June 25, 2021
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625122220/http://archives.cnn.com/1999/TECH/computing/12/09/y2k.fixes.idg/index.html
|url-status=dead
}}</ref><ref>{{cite web
|url=https://www.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?infotype=OC%26subtype=NA%26htmlfid=897/ENUS5724-F77%26appname=totalstorage
|title=IBM Lotus SmartSuite|website=[[IBM]] |date=2017-07-13}}</ref>

All new development of the suite was ended in 2000, with ongoing maintenance being moved overseas. The last update release was in 2014.<ref>{{cite web
|title=IBM Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus SmartSuite and Lotus Organizer
|url=https://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21639384  |date=October 26, 2014}}</ref>

Lotus began its diversification from the desktop software business with its 1984 strategic founding investment in Ray Ozzie's Iris Associates, the creator of its Lotus Notes groupware platform. As a result of this early speculative move, Lotus gained significant experience in network-based communications years before other competitors in the PC world had even started thinking about networked computing or the [[Internet]]. Lotus initially brought Lotus Notes to market in 1989 and later reinforced its market presence by acquiring [[cc:Mail]] in 1991.<ref>{{Cite news|date=12 Feb 1991|title=Lotus to add electronic mail unit|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/12/business/company-news-lotus-to-add-electronic-mail-unit.html|access-date=7 July 2021}}</ref> In 1994, Lotus acquired Iris Associates. Lotus's dominant groupware position attracted IBM, which needed to make a strategic move away from host-based messaging products and to establish a stronger presence in client-server computing, but it also soon attracted stiff competition from [[Microsoft Exchange Server]].{{Citation needed|date=July 2020}}

In the second quarter of 1995, IBM launched a hostile bid for Lotus<ref name=AcquiredGone/> with a $60-per-share tender offer when Lotus' stock was only trading at $32. Jim Manzi looked for potential white knights and forced IBM to increase its bid to $64.50 per share for a $3.5 billion buyout of Lotus in July 1995.<ref>{{Citation| first=Barbara| last=Darrow| title=Jim Manzi| date=12 December 2003| publisher=CRN.com
|url=http://www.crn.com/sections/special/hof/hof03.jhtml;?articleId=18825870&_requestid=226714}}{{dead link|date=January 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> On October 11, 1995, Manzi announced his resignation from what had become the Lotus Development division of IBM; he left with stock worth $78 million.