Samna Corp.

Ami Pro

In 1988, Samna produced the first commercial Word processor for Windows [2.0], beating Microsoft by about a year before the launch of the first version of Word. Its feature-rich word processor was simply called "Ami". It later became Ami Pro after they added support for tables, competing directly against WordStar and MultiMate.

 

In November 1990, Samna was bought by Lotus Development to help complete their 'Office' suite of products.

From the beginning, Ami and Ami Pro were never staid. It always had the jazziest interface of any word processor. With its row of icons down the side of the screen, the original product could easily be mistaken for a paint program. And from the first, it seemed to be infringing on desktop publishing with its power in mixing images and words. It tended to lack some of the power of Word for Windows, but made up for it with the ease with which users could access its features. Perhaps because it looked more fun, it lagged behind Microsoft's product in sales, even with the help of Lotus's marketing muscle.

 
A two-page Ami advertisment from January 1989

Ami Pro was launched on the Windows 3.0 platform in 1991 after Lotus Development Corp bought Samna. It then became Lotus Ami Pro, and later, Lotus Word Pro.

 

Ami Pro v3.0 was released in 1992, and the final version v3.1 was released later that same year. All Windows versions of Ami Pro were bundled with Adobe Type Manager for Windows which made up for Windows poor support of scalable fonts before the introduction of TrueType.

The OS/2 operating system also got a version of Ami Pro.

Lotus Word Pro, though based on the former Ami Pro, was mostly rewritten and included its own new native document format. It's first release was Lotus Word Pro 96 and this was followed with Lotus Word Pro 97.

MORE IMAGES

  
From left to right: Samna Ami Pro 1.2, Lotus Ami Pro 2.0, Lotus Ami Pro 3.0