Lotus Approach is a relational database management system included in IBM's Lotus SmartSuite for Microsoft Windows.
As a start-up company, Approach was formed in 1991 and won over 30 awards the first year, including "best of show" at Comdex. The program was considered the first "end-user relational database" that did not introduce yet another file format.
Approach was sold to Lotus in 1994; Lotus was subsequently purchased by IBM.