WordPerfect co-founder Bruce Bastian dies at 76 • The Register

Obituary Technology entrepreneur Bruce Wayne Bastian, co-founder of WordPerfect, died last month at age 76 at his home in Palmdale, California.

The cause, according to the BW Bastian Foundation, was “complications related to pulmonary fibrosis.”

Bastian helped create the word-processing application that became WordPerfect while still a graduate student at Brigham Young University, working with Alan Ashton, his computer science professor.

In 1979, they founded Satellite Software International (SSI), and in March 1980, they released the first version of the software, called SSI*WP, for the Data General minicomputer. It cost $5,500 at the time, according to WE Pete Peterson, who wrote a history of WordPerfect Corporation in Almost Perfect.

In 1982, a version of the word processing software was released for the IBM PC, running on MS-DOS, under the name WordPerfect. Until version 5.1 in 1990, WordPerfect was written in x86 assembly language.

SSI, not to be confused with gaming company Strategic Simulations Inc., also founded in 1979, became WordPerfect Corporation in 1985. Two years later, its word-processing application became the market leader, overtaking WordStar and Microsoft Word.

Microsoft Windows also debuted in 1985, and its rapid adoption in the following years meant that WordPerfect had to compete on a new platform. By July 1991, WordPerfect’s share began to decline, and within a few years it had been taken over by Windows and Word. That year, Forbes estimated Bastian and Ashton’s net worth at $600 million each, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.

The privately held business was sold to Novell in 1994 for $1.4 billion in stock and options. Two years later, Novell sold WordPerfect to Corel Corporation for $186 million.

As The Washington Post noted at the time, WordPerfect lost significant market share in the first half of the 1990s due to Microsoft’s strategy of bundling Word applications with other office software and selling them as a suite of applications.

Bastian left WordPerfect after its sale to Novell and focused on philanthropy, supporting arts and cultural programs in Utah.

In 1997, Bastian founded the BW Bastian Foundation, which awards grants to organizations that advance equality for all Americans, including the LGBTQ+ community.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ organization, celebrated Bastian’s life as an advocate for equality.

“We are heartbroken to learn of the death of Bruce Bastian, whose legacy will undeniably have a profound impact on the LGBTQ+ community for decades to come,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the campaign.

“Bruce fought this fight, working at every level of politics and advocacy, for more than three decades… Bruce stood up for each and every one of us and lifted up the beautiful diversity of our community. That’s the kind of legacy we should all be proud to carry on.”

In a 2009 Bloomberg interview, Bastian was asked whether the business community was doing a good job of recognizing the rights of gay people.

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It’s definitely getting better. There are certain areas of the country where being gay is really neither a plus nor a minus,” he replied.

“When I started my business, I was married, living in Utah, and pretending to be straight. But I came out, separated from my wife, and came out to my business partners before WordPerfect really took off. It certainly wasn’t a barrier to our growth.”

In 2003, he joined the board of the Human Rights Campaign and worked to defeat the Federal Marriage Amendment, an attempt to amend the Constitution to define marriage as legal only between a man and a woman. He also donated $364,000 and $1 million, respectively, to defeat Utah’s Marriage Amendment and California’s Proposition 8, which both aimed to prohibit same-sex marriage.

According to a report in the Salt Lake Tribune, his former business partner Ashton donated $1 million in support of California’s Proposition 8, which was passed by voters in 2008 and later overturned by a court.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 majority decision invalidated the federal Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which previously defined marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman.” Then in 2015, in Obergefell v. Hodges (Another 5-4 majority decision) The Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment requires recognition of same-sex marriage.

Bastian is survived by three siblings, four sons, fourteen grandchildren and his husband Clint Ford. ®