One Office 3000 - Product History

In the early 1980s BOS (Business Operating Software) was the name given to both the suite of application software for accounts and invoicing and the operating system itself. The operating system is the software that 'sits in between' the programs you use and the hardware you run it on (the operating system we are all most familiar with today is of course Microsoft Windows).

When there were as many varieties of DOS as the computers it ran on, when Unix was an academic's toy, and Bill Gates was still in short pants, BOS provided a suite of mid-range software and an operating system than ran uniformly on a number of computers, from what were, in effect, small mainframe computers (IBM Series 1, DEC PDP-11) to the newly emerging personal computers, or PCs. This included the ability to run multi-user software with several terminals (screens) off of an IBM-PC!

As computing moved on, and networks became the norm, BOS continued to evolve by improving the application software and providing the ability to run it on the new platforms (Novell networking, Unix and then Windows networking) that evolved.

In due course it was clear that there was no need to have its own operating system, and in the late 1980s development of this was ceased. The name BOS was also dropped and the name Global 2000 was introduced.

At the same time the decision was made to develop Global 3000, a 4GL-based successor to Global 2000. Global 3000 would aim at the middle ground - where the software house channel is still pre-eminent - and provide an upgrade path for the enormous (25,000 plus worldwide) Global 2000 user base. The combination of the ultra-portable Global System Manager environment with a modern look and feel and 4GL adaptability has proved to be highly successful.

Over the years more and more functionality has been built into new releases of the software. For the first time it became useable only in a Windows environment, and the product name was changed to OneOffice 3000 to reflect this major change.