Microsoft Word (1983) 237 Word Processor DOS OS2

The Microsoft Word word processor was first introduced for MS-DOS in 1983. Its design made use of a mouse and WYSIWYG graphics. Its crude WYSIWYG/mouse support was a direct response to the Apple Lisa/Mac, and VisiCorp Visi On. Initially it competed against many popular word processors such as WordStar, Multimate, and WordPerfect. Word for DOS was never really successful.

• 5.x (DOS and OS/2)
• 1.x (OS/2)

OS/2 Warp 4 (1996) 209 OS2

OS/2 Warp 4 incorporated a number of new technologies over OS/2 Warp 3, such as Java, OpenGL, OpenDoc, and VoiceType. It also updated the appearance of the Workplace Shell. | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

• OS/2 Warp 4.0
• OS/2 Warp 4.52

Lotus 1-2-3 (1983) 164 Spreadsheet OS2

Lotus 1-2-3 was an early spreadsheet application available for MS-DOS. It became extremely popular in the late 1980s, displacing the former leader VisiCalc. Lotus had difficulties adapting 1-2-3 to the Windows environment, and was overtaken by Microsoft Excel. Spreadsheet functionality was also included in Lotus Symphony. Later versions were included in Lotus SmartSuite.

• 1.x (OS/2)
• 2.x (OS/2)

Microsoft Excel (1985) 163 Spreadsheet OS2 MacOS Windows

Excel, from Microsoft, is a powerful spreadsheet application for Mac, Windows, and OS/2. Excel was first released for the Mac. When it was ported to Windows 2.x, they started at version "2.0" to one up current Mac version. There was never a DOS version. Instead, DOS and 8-bit platforms used the older Microsoft Multiplan. Excel was later bundled as part of Microsoft Office

• 2.2
• 3.x

WordPerfect (1983) 144 Word Processor OS2

During the late 1980's, WordPerfect was THE standard word processor for DOS based PCs in big business. Under DOS, it competed mostly against Wordstar. WordPerfect for Windows enjoyed some success in the early Windows environments, but was quickly displaced by Microsoft Word for Windows. Later Windows versions were part of Borland Office/Novell PerfectOffice/Corel Office/Corel WordPerfect Office.

• 5.0 (OS/2)
• 5.2 (OS/2)

Norton Commander (1986) 127 Utility OS2

Norton Commander is a MS-DOS based file shell that was widely popular due to it's two column design. You could easily copy and move files between one folder or another, execute DOS commands and more. It competed against many other file managers including Gazelle Q-DOS and Xtree

• 1.x (OS2)

OS/2 1.x (1986) 123 OS2

OS/2 was originally a joint effort between IBM and Microsoft. It grew out of efforts to create a Multitasking MS-DOS. It was intended to be the future OS for IBM's new PS/2 series. At release it competed against Microsoft's Windows GUI shell, but most users continued to use DOS. OS/2 1.x was used as the basis for Citrix Multiuser | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

• Pre-Release
• 1.0
• 1.1
• 1.2
• 1.3

OS/2 2.0 (1991) 101 OS2

OS/2 2.0 was a major change over OS/2 1.x. It was the first 32-bit OS/2 and built by IBM free of Microsoft's influence or contribution. It was the first to feature the new Workplace Shell GUI, and the first to be 32-bit. It was followed up by OS/2 Warp 3. | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

• Pre-Release
• 2.0
• 2.1

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 101 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database OS2

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.

• For OS/2
• For OS2 Warp 4

CorelDraw! (1989) 97 Graphics Publishing OS2

Corel Draw is a vector based drawing and illustration program. It is primarily a Windows application, but was ported to Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, CTOS and OS/2. It competed against Aldus Freehand, Adobe Illustrator, and Micrografx Designer.

• 2.5

Borland C++ (1990) 96 OS2

Borland C++ targeted the professional application development market, while Turbo C++ targeted the home and hobbyist market. Borland C++ included additional tools, compiler code-optimization, and documentation to address the needs of commercial developers. In 1997 Borland C++ was replaced with Borland C++ Builder.

• 1.0 (OS/2)
• 1.5 (OS/2)
• 2.0 (OS/2)

PageMaker (1987) 89 Publishing Windows OS2

Aldus PageMaker, later Adobe PageMaker, is a desktop publishing program for Mac and Windows. First released in 1985, PageMaker was the first desktop publishing program for the Macintosh. It was followed over a year later with the release of 1.0 for the IBM PC. The PC version was a notable application as it was one of the few rare applications which would run under Windows 1.x. PC PageMaker 1.0 bundled a runtime version of Windows. This enabled MS-DOS users who had not decided to buy Windows to run PageMaker. Aldus skipped version 2.0 on the PC to bring version number in sync with the 3.0 Mac product.

• 3.01

Microsoft BASIC (1981) 78 DOS OS2

Although Microsoft did not invent BASIC, their founding product was a BASIC interpreter for the Altair computer. The descendants below includes Microsoft's BASIC-80 (MBASIC), BASIC-86 (pre-GWBasic), BASIC for Mac, BASIC Compiler 86/88, Basic Compiler for Mac, and Professional Development System 7.x. IBM Personal Computer Basic Compiler, GW-BASIC, QuickBasic, and Visual Basic are listed separately.

• Compiler 6.0

Microsoft SQL Server (1989) 70 OS2 Windows

A database server from Microsoft. It was originally based on Sybase SQL Server, and the first versions were for OS/2. It was available as a standalone product and also as a part of Microsoft BackOffice Server.

• 1.x
• 4.x

StarOffice (1995) 57 Word Processor Windows OS2

StarOffice, initially from Star Division GmbH is an office suite containing a word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, and graphing program. It was later owned by Sun Microsystems and then Oracle, and spawned the open source OpenOffice and LibreOffice. Also see the earlier StarWriter

• 3.0
• 3.1

Microsoft Mouse (1984) 56 DOS Windows OS2

These are drivers provided by Microsoft for the Microsoft BusPort, serial, and PS/2 mice. Introduced in 1983, The Microsoft Mouse is historically important as it was one of Microsoft's earliest hardware products (The other being an Apple II Z-80 CP/M card). The first Mouse for the IBM PC was actually from Mouse Systems, not Microsoft. However, most clone mice emulated Microsoft's serial protocol and DOS driver software interface. The first application designed to make full use of the mouse was Microsoft Word for DOS, and they hyped a product called "Microsoft Windows" (not released until several years later) that was to compete against the upcoming Apple Macintosh and the Mouse Systems based Viscorp Visi On.

• 7.x
• 8.x

Microsoft C/C++ (1983) 47 DOS Windows OS2

This is the original standalone Microsoft C/C++ compiler for DOS and Windows - Later versions were rebranded and renumbered as Microsoft Visual C++ and were bundled with Visual Studio or the SDKs.

• 6.x

Netscape (1994) 42 Web Browser Windows OS2 Unix Linux MacOS Other

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.

• 3.0.x
• 4.0x
• 4.5x

Watcom C/C++ (1989) 40 DOS OS2 Windows

The Watcom C/C++ is a powerful compiler for DOS, Windows, and OS/2. Its key selling point was superior cross platform support. It supported DOS, extended DOS 32-bit, Win16, Win32, and OS/2. Notably, it was used to produce the video game DOOM as a 32-bit DOS extended program.

• 8.5
• 9.0
• 10.0

Virtual PC (1996) 37 Virtualization Windows OS2 MacOS

Virtual PC started off originally as an x86 emulator for PowerPC Macintosh to run MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. Connectix, the company that made it, was purchased by Microsoft. Virtual PC was then retooled into a virtualization tool for x86 systems. Microsoft discontinued Virtual PC in favor of a server-oriented virtualization product called Hyper-V.

• 4.x

Multiplan (1983) 31 Spreadsheet DOS OS2

Microsoft Multiplan was an early 8-bit spreadsheet application for CP/M and MS-DOS with ports to numerous other platforms in the early 80s. Initially it competed against VisiCalc and later Lotus 1-2-3. A companion product, Microsoft Chart, provided graphing support. Multiplan was never ported to Windows, where it was replaced with Microsoft Excel. Excel also replaced Multiplan on the Macintosh platform.

• 4.x

OS/2 3.x (1994) 25 OS2

OS/2 3.0, marketed under the name "OS/2 Warp", reduced memory usage over OS/2 2.x and included Internet access software. The "Connect" version includes Ethernet networking and peer-to-peer file sharing. The "Blue Spine" editions bundle the Windows 3.1 files so no additional software is needed to use the Win-OS/2 subsystem. It was followed up by OS/2 Warp 4. | 1.x | 2.x | 3.x | 4.x | All |

• 3.0
• 3.0 PowerPC Edition

Sidekick (1984) 25 Utility PIM OS2

Borland Sidekick is a DOS based PIM (Personal Information Manager) and one of the first widely-used TSR (terminate and stay resident) programs. The key feature of Sidekick was that one could use Sidekick's utilities while using most other MS-DOS applications. This was important because MS-DOS had no built-in multi-tasking or task switching capabilities.

• 1.0 for OS/2

Adobe Acrobat Reader (1994) 23 Document Windows OS2

Acrobat Reader is the free software from Adobe used to read, view, and print documents created by the commercial Adobe Acrobat product. Its primary strength is that documents appear and print identically across differing systems.

• 3.x

LANtastic (1990) 21 OS2

Lantastic is an easy to use, low cost networking system targeted at small networks and home users. It was very popular and highly rated in the early 1990s. Unlike most LAN networking software of the time, Lantastic required only installation and minimal, straightforward, configuration. Lantastic gives users the ability to share printers and files on a hard drive or CD-ROM. It is considered a "peer-to-peer" network, as there is no need for a dedicated server. Any computer may be configured as a server as well as a client. Lantastic was also very memory efficient, using minimal DOS memory in both workstation and sever modes, enabling users to run most popular DOS applications while Lantastic was running. Lantastic supported Ethernet, ARCNET and Token Ring networks. Artisoft also sold networking kits that included both network adapters and the Lantastic software. Lantastic was avaialble for DOS, Windows, and OS/2. At the time it competed against Novell Netware Lite, and many other small LAN oriented products.

• 1.x for OS/2