At that time, dBase and its xBase clones ( Foxpro, Clipper) dominated the market. Paradox/DOS was a successful DOS-based database of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Version 4.0 and 4.5 were retooled in the Borland C++ windowing toolkit and used a different extended memory access scheme. Versions up to 3.5 were evolutions from 1.0. Notable classic versions were 3.5 and 4.5.
In September 1987, Borland purchased Ansa Software, including their Paradox/DOS 2.0 software. The New York Times described it as 'among the first of an emerging generation of software making extensive use of artificial intelligence techniques,' and noted that Paradox could read the competing Ashton Tate's dBase files. Paradox for DOS was a relational database management system originally written by Richard Schwartz and Robert Shostak, and released by their Belmont, California-based company Ansa Software in 1985. In mid 1991 Borland began the process to acquire Ashton-Tate and its competing dBase product line A Windows version was planned for release by Borland in 1992, but was delayed until January 1993, by which time Microsoft's Access for Windows was available.
It was originally released for MS-DOS by Ansa Software, and then updated by Borland after it bought the company. Paradox is a relational database management system currently published by Corel Corporation.
