Apart from not wanting to work for someone else the three HSG graduates Claudio Hintermann
Eliano Ramelli and Thomas Köberl had no plan when they founded the software company Abacus in
1985. Later joined by Daniel Senn the group shrugged their shoulders when the New Economy hype
wanted to make them millionaires and repeatedly took on the authorities and large
corporations. They focused on their employees and on good food good wine great parties and
culture. And of course ¿on programming the best software. In the second half of the 1980s
numerous companies were developing business software in Switzerland. Many went under. Even
multinational companies like Microsoft and SAP tried to conquer the Swiss SME market only to
meet with failure.
