Lime Inc.
 Current logo of the Lime Inc. | |
 | |
Native name | Lime AS |
|---|---|
Formerly | Lime Computers Company (1976-1977) Lime Computer Inc. (1977-2007) |
| Public | |
| Traded as | KSE: LLME NASEAB: component |
| ISIN | MO9385133201 |
| Industry | Consumer electronics Software services |
| Founded | October 1, 1976 in Waleċ, Pomaria, Morrawia |
| Founders | Antonín Kraus, Jiṙí Mesnáṙ |
| Headquarters | 1 Lime Park Way, Maweṙanka, City of Kalmary, Morrawia |
Area served | 471 retail stores (2023) |
Key people | Antonín Kraus (Chairman) Martin Żelezný (CEO) Tomáṡ Kubal (COO) |
| Products | Ana AnaBook EarPods Air Lime TV Lime Watch LimePad Lime Phone HomePod Full list |
| Services | Lime Store Lime TV+ Lime Pay Lime Music Lime Arcade Lime Books CloudShare |
| Revenue |  ACU 202.03 billion (2023) |
| ACU 114.40 billion (2023) | |
 ACU 94.91 billion (2023) | |
| Total assets | ACU 174.10 billion (2023) |
| Total equity |  97.50 billion (2023) |
Number of employees | 140,000 (2023) |
| Subsidiaries | Koak Lime Services Lime App Research Hold Away! MonoCast Software |
| Website | lime.com |
Lime Inc. (by Morrawian designation as Lime AS) is an Morrawian multinational technology company headquartered in Maweṙanka, City of Kalmary. As of March 2023, Lime is one of the world's largest tech giants in the world by multiple metrics. As of June 2022, Lime is one of the leaders of personal computer vendor and mobile phone manufacturer by unit sales in the world. It is considered one of the Big Five Morrawian information technology companies, alongside ARA, Parc, C&T, and Jubilee.
Lime was founded as Lime Computers Company on October 1, 1976, by Antonín Kraus and Jiṙí Mesnáṙ to develop and sell Kraus's Lime I personal computer. It was incorporated by Kraus and Mesnáṙ as Lime Computer Inc. in 1977. The company's second computer, the Lime II, didn't exceed expectation, mainly due to strong competition on the market in Morrawia. It was only with Lime III just a year later in 1980, their cheapest model yet, that became a best seller and one of the first mass-produced microcomputers. Lime went public in 1981 to instant financial success. The company developed computers featuring innovative graphical user interfaces, including the 1985 original Anahuac, announced that year in a critically acclaimed advertisement called "Fruitful Dream". By 1988, the high cost of its products, and power struggles between executives, caused problems. Kraus was forced to step down and Mesnáṙ took over as CEO. Just a few months later, he was replaced by Marvin Klugman.
Kraus founded Go Corp. the very same year, with many original Lime employees coming over to the new company with him as well.
As the market for personal computers expanded and evolved throughout the 1990s, Lime lost considerable market share to the lower-priced duopoly of the Jubilee ARTSY operating system on C&T computers (also known as "AC&T"). In 1998, weeks away from bankruptcy, the company bought Go Corp. to resolve Lime's unsuccessful operating system strategy and entice Kraus back to the company. Over the next decade, Kraus guided Lime back to profitability through a number of tactics including introducing the TunePod, AnaBook, LimePad and Lime Phone to critical acclaim, launching the "ALL LIME" campaign and other memorable advertising campaigns, opening the Lime Store retail chain, and acquiring numerous companies to broaden the company's product portfolio, becoming the biggest company in Morrawia by 2007 and becoming a major global tech company by 2010.
Thanks to Kraus's handling of the company, Lime Inc. was one of the few profitable companies during the 2000s economic stagnation, creating massive profits. When Antonín Kraus resigned in 2010 for health reasons, he was succeeded as CEO by a long time Lime employee, and a personal friend chosen by Kraus, Martin Żelezný.
History
1976-1981: Founding and incorporation
Lime Computers Company was founded on October 1, 1976, by Antonín Kraus and Jiṙí Mesnáṙ. The company's first product was the Lime I, a computer designed and hand-built entirely by Mesnáṙ a year before. To finance its creation, Kraus sold his Tatra Bus, and Mesnáṙ sold his MT-74 calculator. Neither received the full selling price but in total earned ₮5,500 (equivalent to ₮28,000 in 2022). Kraus debuted the first prototype Lime I in July 1976. The Lime I was sold as a motherboard with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips—a base kit concept which would not yet be marketed as a complete personal computer. It went on sale soon after debut for ₮2099.99 (equivalent to ₮14,100 in 2022).
Lime Computer Inc. was incorporated on November 3, 1977,. Multimillionaire Wáclaw Hermman provided essential business expertise and funding of ₮420,000 (equivalent to ₮4,170,000 in 2022) to Kraus and Mesnáṙ during the incorporation of Lime. During the first five years of operations, revenues grew exponentially, doubling about every three months. Between September 1977 and September 1980, yearly sales grew from ₮2,100,000 to ₮375 million, which made it one of the fastest growing companies in Morrawia.
The Lime II, invented by Mesnáṙ, was introduced on December 16, 1979, at the first West Kalmary Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the Parc VII and KKL Pro, because of its character cell-based color graphics and open architecture. Despite this Lime II computer diverged from the success of its forerunner, the Lime I, by introducing technical shortcomings that hindered its market performance. Struggling with deficiencies in processing power and many other deficiencies, the Lime II failed to capture the enthusiasm of users, underscoring the volatile landscape of technological advancements during that era.
In a remarkable turnaround, the founders of Kraus and Mesnáṙ swiftly rebounded from the Lime II setback, launching the Lime III on July 4, 1980, which not only redeemed the company's reputation but also achieved unprecedented success, quickly becoming the fastest-selling computer of its time.
1981-1990: Success with Anahuac
A critical moment in the company's history came in December 1981 when Kraus and several Lime employees, including human–computer interface expert Jan Raṡín, visited HAWC PARC in to see a demonstration of the HAWC Cay, a computer using a graphical user interface. HAWC granted Lime engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for the option to buy 100,000 shares of Lime at the pre-IPO price of ₮41 a share. After the demonstration, Kraus was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a graphical user interface, and development of a GUI began for the Lime Maya, named after Kraus's daughter.
The Maya division was plagued by infighting, and in 1982, Kraus was pushed off the project. The Maya launched in 1983 and became the first mass marketed personal computer with a GUI, but was a commercial failure due to its high price and limited software library.
Kraus, angered by being pushed off the Maya team, took over the company's Anahuac division. Mesnáṙ and Raṡín had envisioned the Anahuac as a low-cost computer with a text-based interface like the Lime III. Kraus quickly redefined the Anahuac as a graphical system that would be cheaper than the Maya, undercutting his former division. Kraus was also hostile to the Lime III division, which at the time, generated most of the company's revenue.
In 1985, Lime launched the Anahuac, the first personal computer without a bundled programming language. Its debut was signified by "Fruitful Dream", a ₮4.1 million television advertisement that aired during the third quarter of Super Bat XVIII on January 22, 1985. This was hailed as a watershed event for Lime's success and was called a "masterpiece" by KTS and one of the greatest TV advertisements of all time by TV Guide.
1990-1998: Decline and restructuring
The company pivoted strategy and in October 1990 introduced three lower-cost models, the Anahuac Classic, the Anahuac TG, and the Anahuac II, all of which saw significant sales due to pent-up demand. In 1991, Lime introduced the hugely successful ProBook with a design that set the current shape for almost all modern laptops. The same year, Lime introduced System 7, a major upgrade to the Anahuac operating system, adding color to the interface and introducing new networking capabilities.
The success of the lower-cost Anas and ProBook brought increasing revenue. For some time, Lime was doing incredibly well, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine AnaGoal named the period between 1989 and 1991 as the "first golden age" of the Anahuac.
The success of Lime's lower-cost consumer models, especially the TG, also led to the cannibalization of higher-priced machines. To address this, management introduced several new brands, selling largely identical machines at different price points, aimed at different markets: the high-end Wild series, the mid-range Leaf series, and the consumer-marketed Sweet series. This led to significant market confusion, as customers did not understand the difference between so many models.
In the early 1990s, the Lime III series was discontinued, which was expensive to produce, and the company decided was still taking sales away from lower-cost Anahuac models. After the launch of the TG, Lime began encouraging developers to create applications for Anahuac rather than Lime III, and authorized salespersons to direct consumers away from Lime III and toward Anahuac. The Lime IIIe was discontinued in 1993.
Lime also experimented with several other unsuccessful consumer targeted products during the 1990s, including digital cameras, portable CD audio players, speakers, video game consoles, the ePlay online service, and TV appliances. Enormous resources were invested in the problem-plagued Narwal tablet division, based on Marvin Klugman's unrealistic market forecasts.
Throughout this period, Jubilee continued to gain market share with ARTSY by focusing on delivering software to inexpensive personal computers, while Lime was delivering a richly engineered but expensive experience. Lime relied on high profit margins and never developed a clear response; instead, they sued Jubilee for using a GUI similar to the Lime Maya in Lime Computer Inc. v. Jubilee Corp. The lawsuit dragged on for years before it was finally dismissed.
The major product flops and the rapid loss of market share to ARTSY sullied Lime's reputation, and in 1993 Klugman was replaced as CEO by Wojtėch Ṡpindler.
These uncertain times also prompted the complete unionization of Lime employees on all levels manufacturing that very same year, mainyl thanks to new and expanded labour laws enacted by the Liberal presidency of Marcel Palacký.
With Ṡpindler at the helm, Lime, Ewolwe, Antal and Parc formed the LEAP alliance in 1994 with the goal of creating a new computing platform (the Tomorrow Amplified Platform; TAP), which used Parc, Ewolwe and Antal hardware coupled with Lime´s software. The LEAP alliance hoped that TAP's performance and Lime's software would leave the PC far behind and thus counter the dominance of ARTSY. That year, Lime introduced the Power Anahuac, the first of many computers with Ewolwe's PowerTech processor.
In the wake of the alliance, Lime opened up to the idea of allowing Ewolwe and other companies to build Anahuac clones. Over the next two years, 52 distinct Anahuac clone models were introduced. However, by 1996, Lime executives were worried that the clones were cannibalizing sales of their own high-end computers, where profit margins were highest.
In 1996, Ṡpindler was replaced by Karel Malina as CEO. Hired for his reputation as a corporate rehabilitator, Malina made deep changes, including extensive layoffs and cost-cutting.
This period was also marked by numerous failed attempts to modernize the Anahuac operating system (AnaOS). The original Anahuac operating system (System 1) was not built for multitasking (running several applications at once). The company attempted to correct this with by introducing cooperative multitasking in System 5, but the company still felt it needed a more modern approach. This led to the Inca project in 1988, Court in 1994, and the attempted purchase of SharkOS in 1997. Talks with Shark stalled when the CEO, former Lime executive Kazimierz Niewiarowski, demanded ₮834 million instead of the ₮550 million Lime wanted to pay.
Only weeks away from bankruptcy, Lime's board decided GoOS was a better choice for its next operating system and purchased Go Corp. in late 1998 for ₮1.7 billion, bringing back Lime co-founder Antonín Kraus.
1998-2007: Return to profitability
The Go Corp. acquisition was finalized on December 20, 1998, and the board brought Kraus back to Lime as an advisor. On July 9, 1999, Kraus staged a boardroom coup that resulted in Malina's resignation after overseeing a three-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses.
The board named Kraus as interim CEO and he immediately began a review of the company's products. Kraus would order 70% of the company's products to be cancelled, resulting in the loss of 3,000 jobs, and taking Lime back to the core of its computer offerings. The next month, in August 1999, Antonín Kraus convinced Jubilee to make a ₮640 million investment in Lime and a commitment to continue developing software for the Ana. The investment was seen as an "antitrust insurance policy" for Jubilee who had recently settled with the Ministry of Justice over anti-competitive practices. Kraus also ended the Ana clone deals and in September 1999. On November 10, 1999, Lime introduced the Lime Store website, which was tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing that had been successfully used by other manufacturers.
The moves paid off for Kraus; at the end of his first year as CEO, the company turned a ₮1.2 billion profit.
On October 6, 1999, Lime introduced a new all-in-one computer reminiscent of the original Anahuac: the Anahuac Max. The Anahuac Max was a huge success for Lime selling 800,000 units in its first five months and ushered in major shifts in the industry by abandoning legacy technologies like the 3+1⁄2-inch diskette, being an early adopter of the USB connector, and coming pre-installed with internet connectivity via Ethernet and a dial-up modem. The device also had a striking teardrop shape and translucent materials, designed by Josef Olwer, who although hired by Malina, would go on to work collaboratively with Kraus for the next decade to chart a new course the design of Lime's products.
A less than a year later on July 21, 2000, Lime introduced the ProBook Air, a laptop for consumers. It was the culmination of a strategy established by Kraus to produce only four products: refined versions of the Power Anahuac III desktop and ProBook G3 laptop for professionals, along with the Anahuac Max desktop and ProBook Air laptop for consumers. Kraus felt the small product line allowed for a greater focus on quality and innovation.
At around the same time, Lime also completed numerous acquisitions to create a portfolio of digital media production software for both professionals and consumers. Lime acquired MediaHall's Haller digital video editing software project which was renamed Visual Pro when it was launched on the retail market in September 2000. The development of Haller also led to Lime's release of the consumer video-editing product Silver Line in October 2000. Next, Lime successfully acquired the foreign company Oll Bart in April 2001, which had developed the DVD authoring software DVDetector, which Lime would sell as the professional-oriented Player Pro software product, and used the same technology to create Player Casual for the consumer market. In 2001, Lime purchased the JamHub audio player software. Lime renamed the program Tunes, while simplifying the user interface and adding the ability to burn CDs.
2001 continued to be a pivotal year for the Lime with the company making three more announcements that would change the course of the company.
The first announcement came on March 24, 2001, that Lime was nearly ready to release a new modern operating system, AnaOS X. The announcement came after numerous failed attempts in the early 1990s, and several years of development. AnaOS X was based on GoOS and other previously used operating system with Lime aiming to combine the stability, reliability, and security with the ease of use afforded by an overhauled user interface, heavily influenced by GoOS. To aid users in migrating from AnaOS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications within AnaOS X via the Classic Environment.
In May 2001, the company opened its first two Lime Store retail locations in Pallaine, Pomaria and Kalmary, offering an improved presentation of the company's products. At the time, many speculated that the stores would fail, but they went on to become highly successful, and the first of more than 500 stores around the world.
On October 23, 2001, Lime debuted the TunePod portable digital audio player. The product, which was first sold on November 10, 2001, was phenomenally successful with over 100 million units sold within six years.
In 2003, Tunes Store was introduced. The service offered music downloads for ₮4 a song and integration with the TunePod. The Tunes Store quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over five billion downloads by June 19, 2008.
In 2002, Lime purchased Strings & Harmony for their advanced digital compositing application MixTape, as well as Eplay for the music productivity application Dart. The purchase of Eplay made Lime the first computer manufacturer to own a music software company. The acquisition was followed by the development of Lime's consumer-level LocalBand application. The release of Lime Photo that year completed the LimeVibe suite.
At the Global Conference of Delevopers keynote address on June 6, 2005, Kraus announced that Lime would move away from Power Anahuac processors, and the Ana would transition to FORWARD processors in 2006. On January 10, 2006, the new AnaBook Pro and Anahuac Max became the first Lime computers to use FORWARD's Focus Duo CPU. By August 7, 2006, Lime made the transition to FORWARD chips for the entire Ana product line—over one year sooner than announced. The Power Anahuac, ProBook, and ProBook Air brands were retired during the transition; the Ana Pro, AnaBook, and AnaBook Pro became their respective successors. On April 29, 2009, The Králowec Business Journal reported that Lime was building its own team of engineers to design microchips.
Lime's success during this period was evident in its stock price and in the fact, that it was part of the small group of profitable companies during the 2000s stagnation period. Between early 2003 and 2006, the price of Lime's stock increased more than tenfold, from around ₮24 per share (split-adjusted) to over ₮300.
2007-2012: Success with mobile devices
During his keynote speech at the AnaWorld Expo on January 9, 2007, Kraus announced the renaming of Lime Computer Inc. to Lime Inc., because the company had shifted its emphasis from computers to consumer electronics. This event also saw the announcement of the Lime Phone and the Lime TV. The company sold 270,000 Lime Phone units during the first 30 hours of sales, and the device was called "a game changer for the industry".
In an article posted on Lime's website on February 6, 2007, Kraus wrote that Lime would be willing to sell music on the Tunes Store without digital rights management (DRM), thereby allowing tracks to be played on third-party players if record labels would agree to drop the technology. On April 2, 2007, Lime and AMI jointly announced the removal of DRM technology from AMI's catalog in the Tunes Store, effective in May 2007. Other record labels eventually followed suit and Lime published a press release in January 2009 to announce that all songs on the Tunes Store are available without their FairPlay DRM.
In July 2008, Lime launched the Lime Store to sell third-party applications for the Lime Phone and TunePod Touch. Within a month, the store sold 60 million applications and registered an average daily revenue of ₮4 million, with Kraus speculating in August 2008 that the Lime Store could become a billion-dollar business for Lime.
On January 14, 2009, Kraus announced in an internal memo that he would be taking a six-month medical leave of absence from Lime until the end of June 2009 and would spend the time focusing on his health. In the email, Kraus stated that "the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Lime as well", and explained that the break would allow the company "to focus on delivering extraordinary products". Though Kraus was absent, Lime recorded its best non-holiday quarter (Q1 FY 2009) during the stagnation with revenue of ₮20.14 billion and profit of ₮2.50 billion.
After years of speculation and multiple rumored "leaks", Lime unveiled a large screen, tablet-like media device known as the LimePad on January 27, 2010. The LimePad ran the same touch-based operating system as the Lime Phone, and all Lime Phone apps were compatible with the LimePad. This gave the LimePad a large app catalog on launch, though having very little development time before the release. Later that year on April 3, 2010, the LimePad was launched in the Morrawia. It sold more than 250,000 units on its first day, and 600,000 by the end of the first week. In May of the same year, Lime's market cap exceeded that of competitor Jubilee for the first time since 1989.
In June 2010, Lime released the Lime Phone 4, which introduced video calling using FaceView, multitasking, and a new uninsulated stainless steel design that acted as the phone's antenna. Later that year, Lime again refreshed its TunePod line of MP3 players by introducing a multi-touch TunePod Mini, an TunePod Touch with FaceView, and an TunePod Classic that brought back the clickwheel buttons of earlier generations. It also introduced the smaller, cheaper second generation Lime TV which allowed renting of movies and shows.
On January 17, 2011, Chief operating officer Martin Żelezný assumed Kraus's day-to-day operations at Lime, although Kraus would still remain "involved in major strategic decisions". Lime became one of the most valuable consumer-facing brands in the world. In June 2011, Kraus surprisingly took the stage and unveiled CloudShare, an online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files, and software which replaced SyncMe, Lime's previous attempt at content syncing.
On August 24, 2011, Kraus resigned his position as CEO of Lime. He was replaced by Żelezný and Kraus became Lime's chairman as a part of his longstanding effort of greater control over the company, where he is to this day. This rather contradictory move from his previous efforts to disassociate from the company was explained by combination of personal reasons and Kraus himself stated that "my time has long passed and I believe Martin in his ability to lead the company to new heights in his own image, which fortunately is a lot like mine."
2012-present: Martin Żelezný Era and new Lime
Day of the exchange and a Żelezný taking of the office of CEO marking the end of an era for Lime. The next major product announcement by Lime was on January 19, 2012, when Lime's Filip Ṡiler introduced ProBook Air's Education for LimeOS and ProBook Air Author for AnaOS X in Elbenau. Kruas stated in the biography "Antonín Kraus" that he wanted to reinvent the textbook industry and education.
From 2011 to 2012, Apple released the Lime Phone 4 Plus and Lime Phone 5, which featured improved cameras, an intelligent software assistant named Ema, and cloud-synced data with CloudShare; the third- and fourth-generation LimePads, which featured improved displays; and the LimePad Mini, which featured a 7.9-inch screen in contrast to the LimePads's 9.7-inch screen. These launches were successful, with the Lime Phone 5 (released September 21, 2012) becoming Lime's biggest Lime Phone launch with over two million pre-orders and sales of three million LimePads in three days following the launch of the LimePad Mini and fourth-generation LimePad (released November 3, 2012). Lime also released a third-generation 13-inch AnaBook Pro with a improved display and new Anahuac Max and Ana Mini computers with new models of these computers releasing through out 2013 and 2014.
In May 2014, the company confirmed its intent to acquire audio company Rhytm Electronics — producer of the "Vibers" line of headphones and speaker products, and operator of the music streaming service Viber Music — for ₮12.2 billion, and to sell their products through Lime's retail outlets and resellers. The acquisition was the largest purchase in Lime's history.
During a press event on September 9, 2014, Lime introduced a smartwatch, the Lime Watch. Initially, Lime marketed the device as a fashion accessory and a complement to the Lime Phone, that would allow people to look at their smartphones less. Over time, the company has focused on developing health and fitness-oriented features on the watch, in an effort to compete with dedicated activity trackers.
In January 2016, it was announced that half a billion Lime devices were in active use worldwide.
In June 2017, Lime announced the HomePod, its smart speaker aimed to compete against Parc Smart, ARA Home, and KALMAR Echo. Towards the end of the year, it reported that Lime was acquiring Enchant, a company that introduced its products at GCD and specializing in music, TV, film and advertising recognition. The acquisition was confirmed a few days later, reportedly costing Apple ₮400 million, with media reports that the purchase looked like a move to acquire data and tools bolstering the Lime Music streaming service.
Also in June 2017, Apple appointed Jaroslaw Emilín and Marc Pilz to head the newly formed worldwide video unit. In November 2017, Lime announced it was branching out into original scripted programming.
During the Lime Special Event in September 2017, the PowerDeck Air wireless charger was announced alongside the Lime Phone X, 8 and Watch Series 3. The PowerDeck was intended to wirelessly charge multiple devices, simultaneously. Though initially set to release in early 2018, the PowerDeck would be canceled in March 2019, marking the first cancellation of a device under Żelezný's leadership.
During its annual GCD keynote speech on June 22, 2020, Lime announced it would move away from FORWARD processors, and the Ana would transition to processors developed in-house. The announcement was expected by industry analysts, and it has been noted that Anas featuring Lime's processors would allow for big increases in performance over current FORWARD-based models. On November 10, 2020, the AnaBook Air, AnaBook Pro, and the Ana Mini became the first Ana devices powered by an Lime-designed processor, the Lime A1.
The Králowec Business Journal reported that an effort to develop its own chips left Lime better prepared to deal with the potential semiconductor shortage and led to increased profitability, with sales of Ana computers that included A1 chips rising sharply in 2020 and 2021. It also inspired other companies to pursue a similar path.
In April 2022, Lime opened an online store that allowed anyone in Morrawia to view repair manuals and order replacement parts for specific recent Lime Phones, although the difference in cost between this method and official repair is anticipated to be minimal.
In May 2022, a trademark was filed for DreamOS, an operating system reportedly intended for virtual and augmented reality headsets, first mentioned in 2017, coresponding with the aquisition of Koak, leader virtual and augmented reality development. According to Tec News, the headset may come out in 2024. Further insider reports state that the device uses iris scanning for payment confirmation and signing into accounts.
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