Spinnaker Software
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| Industry | Educational software |
|---|---|
| Fate | Merged |
| Successor | The Learning Company |
| Founded | April 1, 1982 |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States |
Spinnaker Software was a software company founded in 1982 known primarily for its line of non-curriculum based educational software, which was a major seller during the 1980s. It was founded by chairman Bill Bowman and president C. David Seuss.
Spinnaker pioneered the educational software market and was the first company to mass market low cost, educational software. It went public on NASDAQ in 1991 and was acquired by The Learning Company in 1994. The Learning Company was subsequently acquired by Mattel.
One of the key elements of the business plan was to change the marketing of software aimed at home users: Instead of plastic bags, the software was put into brightly colored, durable plastic boxes. To reach non-tech-savvy parents as potential buyers, full-color advertisements were run in magazines like Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens and Newsweek. The budget for advertising was huge: In 1983 $1.5 million were spent on advertising compared to sales of $11.1 million.
Robert Nason Baker of advertising agency Harold Cabot & Co., Boston designed the company logo and the multicoloured stripe that appeared on all printed material.
The initial lineup for Christmas 1982 comprised four titles:FaceMaker and The Story Machine, learning games by San Francisco-based DesignWare, and two Snooper Troops strategy games by Tom Snyder Productions.
Among the Spinnaker Software titles of 1983 were three programs designed and programmed by Interactive Picture Systems: Trains, Aerobics, and Grandma's House for Apple II, Atari 800 and Commodore 64 systems. A well-known product of 1983 was In Search of the Most Amazing Thing by Tom Snyder Productions.
Spinnaker's educational titles included such games as Alphabet Zoo and Kidwriter. Kidwriter, a storybook authoring tool and the first word processor ever designed and developed specifically for children, was created by Jim and Jack Pejsa, who also developed Movie Creator (licensed by Spinnaker to Fisher Price Corp.) an 8 track video and 3 track music production and editing workshop for children. Alphabet Zoo was produced by Dale Disharoon, a teacher from Chico, California.
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