Microsoft Office (1991) 335 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Publishing PIM Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Office is a bundle of Microsoft's productivity application. This includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access and later Mail, Office Manager, and Outlook. The "1.x" versions of Microsoft Office were simply a marketing bundle of the standalone products sold together with no other packaging changes. Even though these were distinct applications, rather than one single monolithic program, they shared a similar user interface, integrated well together and shared the ability to embed documents from one application in the documents of another.

• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 4.2
• 4.3
• 95
• 97/98
• 2000
• XP (2002 Beta)

Internet Explorer (1995) 182 Web Browser Windows MacOS Unix Mac OS X

Microsoft Internet Explorer is a web browser application created by Microsoft primarily for Microsoft Windows. It was initially based on Spyglass Mosaic. At various points, Internet Explorer was also available for MacOS, Solaris, and HP-UX.

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 5.5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• 11

Microsoft Works (1986) 90 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database Windows MacOS

Microsoft Works was an all-in-one scaled-down Word Processor, Spreadsheet, and Database geared towards the home user. It was released in variants for early DOS, Windows, and Macintosh. Microsoft Works competed against Lotus Jazz, FrameWork, AlphaWorks/LotusWorks, PFS First Choice, and many others.

• 2.x (Win)
• 3.x (Win)
• 4.0
• 4.5
• 5.x
• 6.0
• 9.0

dBASE (1983) 78 Database DOS Windows

Ashton-Tate dBase was an early popular database management system for CP/M and MS-DOS. It was regarded as one of the killer applications for CP/M, and achieved good success. At the time of conception Ashton-Tate was a garage based company but quickly grew.

• 5.x

Microsoft Access (1992) 39 Database Windows

Microsoft Access is a powerful and friendly desktop database. You can design complex tables, forms, and reports through selection and drag-and drop. You can make a fully usable interactive database application without a line of code, but for more advanced functionality it supports built-in Visual Basic for Applications. It is also bundled with some versions of Microsoft Office

• 1.x
• 2.0
• 95 (7.0)
• 97

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 36 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database Windows

IBM/Lotus SmartSuite is an office suite from Lotus software for Windows and OS/2. SmartSuite includes SmartCenter, 1-2-3, Word Pro, Freelance Graphics, Approach, Organizer, and ScreenCam.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.0
• 96
• 97
• 9.0
• 9.1
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8

Netscape (1994) 29 Web Browser Windows Unix MacOS OS2 Linux Other Mac OS X

Netscape Navigator/Communicator was the first commercial web browser, displacing the free NCSA Mosaic. 1.0 was first released in December 1994, and initially offered advanced features such as progressively rendering pages as they loaded. It quickly gained many other features and capabilities and became the most popular web browser in the mid 1990s. One reason for its popularity, it was licensed freely for personal and non-profit use, although companies were expected to pay for a license. It later competed with Microsoft Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari, and eventually was open sourced in to the Mozilla browser.

• 0.x
• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0.x
• 4.0x
• 4.5x
• 6.x
• 7.x

LapLink (1987) 24 Communications Windows

LapLink, from Traveling Software Inc., enables users to easily and quickly move files between two DOS computers using only a serial null-modem cable or a special parallel port connector. No other hardware is needed. Laplink was extremely popular.during the late 80s and early 90s. It was infinitely easier to set up any two arbitrary PCs (often portables or laptops) with LapLink than other methods, such as DOS based networking. MS-DOS 6 bundled a similar set of file transfer tools called INTERLNK and INTERSVR.

• 7.5 for Windows 95
• 2000
• Gold (9.0)

Oracle Forms and Reports (1997) 20 Database Windows

Oracle Forms and Reports is a GUI application builder. It is similar to Visual Basic, but uses the PL/SQL language and integrates heavily with Oracle Server databases.

• 4.5 (Developer 2000)
• 6i

Microsoft Outlook (1997) 17 Communications PIM Windows MacOS

Microsoft Outlook (not to be confused with Outlook Express) is an enterprise grade e-mail client. It is primarily intended for use with Microsoft Exchange Server. It was available as both a stand-alone product and as part of Microsoft Office.

• 97
• 98

ClarisWorks (1991) 16 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Publishing Database Windows MacOS

ClarisWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool from Claris. In 1998, after version 5.0.2, ClairsWorks was purchased by Apple and re-branded under the "AppleWorks" name. It is not related to the Apple II AppleWorks product.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.x
• 4.x

Clarion (1989) 16 Database Windows

Clarion is an advanced user friendly 4GL DBMS and programming environment for DOS and Windows. It boasted the ability to greatly reduce application development time, featured highly integrated visual creation tools, and a powerful set of program functions.

• 1.0 (Win)

ArcView GIS (1996) 16 Graphics Other Database Windows

ArcView, from Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. is a geographical information system program for Win9x/NT.

• 3.0
• 3.3

Procomm Plus (1985) 11 Communications Windows

ProComm, from Datastorm technologies, was a powerful and very popular telecommunications program for DOS and Windows. TERMULATOR, written to fill the gap left by shareware PC-Talk when its author died. protocols for uploading and downloading, and automatic redial. The commercial "ProComm Plus" includes a scripting language, more terminal types, additional file transfer protocols, context sensitive help, support for 8 COM ports, and a professionally written manual (telecommunications)](/product/microsoft_access_business_information_access_program), Crosstalk, Relay Gold, and PFS Access. Later, it competed with QModem and Telemate.

• 1.0 For Windows
• 2.x for Windows
• 3.0 For Windows

FileMaker (1984) 9 Database Windows MacOS

FileMaker is a very easy to use graphical flat-file database management tool from Claris that allows for visual form and report creation. Originally for DOS, there were Macintosh versions and later it was ported to Windows.

• Pro 2.x
• Pro 3.x
• Pro 5.x

pcANYWHERE (1990) 8 Communications Windows DOS

pcAnywhere is a tool that enables one to remotely control another computer, or to be remotely controlled.

• 1.0 (Win)
• 7.5 (Win)
• 8.0 (Win)

CompuServe Information Manager (1989) 8 Communications Windows

CompuServe Information Manager is the client software used for accessing the CompuServe service.

• 1.x (Win)
• 2.x (Win)

Lotus Notes (1993) 8 Communications PIM Windows MacOS

Lotus Notes is a powerful e-mail and collaboration tool. It was heavily used by large corporations. It was sometimes criticized for its complexity and bloat. Notes is a client server tool, and uses the Lotus Domino server (originally just called Lotus Notes server). Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino competed against Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange.

• 3.x
• 5.x

NCSA Mosaic (1993) 7 Web Browser Windows

First released in 1993, NCSA Mosaic was the first really popular web browser. Unlike the original browser, WorldWideWeb on NeXT, Mosaic was available for the Microsoft Windows platform and added features such as inline graphics viewing. It was developed by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. NCSA Mosaic was distributed freely for non commercial use, but required a license for commercial business use. It was licensed by a number of third party OEMs, including Microsoft, who used it for the basis of Microsoft Internet Explorer. In 1995, its popularly quickly gave way to Netscape Navigator.

• 1

BitFax (1992) 7 Communications Windows

BitFax is a basic fax program, used with compatible FaxModems. It was available for both DOS and Windows. BitFax/OCR includes optical character recognition used in conjunction with receiving fax documents.

• 2.x (Win)

America Online (1992) 6 Web Browser Chat DOS Windows

America Online was a proprietary dial-up online service that eventually grew to offerer Internet access. In the mid 1990s AOL was very heavily promoted. Every month or two, you were sure to get a free AOL floppy disk or CD-ROM in the mail. AOL originated as PC-Link.

• 1.x
• 2.x
• 3.0

Qmodem (1992) 6 Communications Windows

Qmodem was a friendly, well designed, and feature rich, commercial telecommunications program that was also distributed in shareware form. The first release was in 1984 by John Friel III, and sold to Mustang Software in 1991. During the early years, it competed with PC-Talk. During the later years, it competed with Procomm and Telemate.

• Pro 1.0 (Win)

WS_FTP (1998) 5 Communications Windows

WS_FTP, from Ipswitch, Inc., is one of the earliest shareware FTP clients, and was free for both personal and government use. It uses a classic "dual pane" user interface. Among other features, it supports VMS FTP servers.

• LE

Microsoft Mail (1991) 5 Communications Windows

There were two distinct "Microsoft Mail" products. One for AppleTalk Networks, and one for PC Networks.

• 3.5

Borland Office (1994) 4 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Database Windows

Borland Office is an office suite published by Borland built around WordPerfect, Paradox, and Quattro Pro. It competed unsuccessfully against Microsoft Office. It was later acquired by Novell and renamed "PerfectOffice", and then later became "Corel Office".

• 2.0