Lifeboat Associates

Lifeboat Associates was a company that acted as an independent software broker marketing software to major hardware vendors such as Xerox, HP and Altos. As such Lifeboat Associates was instrumental in the founding of Autodesk and also financed the creation of PC Magazine.The company distributed T/Maker, one of the first spreadsheet programs designed for the personal computer user, and The Boss Financial Accounting System, one of the first accounting programs for micro-computers. In addition Lifeboat Associates started collecting and distributing user-written "free" software, initially for the CP/M operating system. One of the first was XMODEM, which allowed reliable communication via modem and phone line.It was later purchased by Programmer's Paradise.