Ability (1985) 1 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Communications Database Windows

Originally released in 1984 by the Canadian company Xanaro that went bankrupt, and then by Migent, Ability is an integrated office suite for DOS that includes word processor, spreadsheet, database, telecommunications, business graphing, presentation graphics capabilities, and built in file management. It features good integration between the different components, with the ability to import, share, and dynamically update data between them. It was advertised as a very easy to use and a quick to learn system.

• 2000
• 2002

Adobe Acrobat (1993) 40 Publishing Windows MacOS

Adobe Acrobat, first released in 1993, is a tool for creating portable electronic documents. Its documents retain complex formatting when used across differing systems, so that they appear identical when viewed on screen or printed to a printer. Acrobat accomplishes this by encapsulating Adobe's PostSript printer language in to a document file format and offering the ability to embed fonts that are not present on the target system.

• 4.x
• 5.x
• 6.x

Adobe Dimensions (1992) 1 Graphics Publishing Windows

Adobe Dimensions was a low cost 3-d object editing and rendering program. Unlike other 3d rendering programs, Dimensions is specifically geared towards producing illustrations for print. programs, such as Adobe Illustrator or Freehand, and edited to create 3d objects. Then, instead of outputting a pixilated raster image, it outputs in postscript bezier curves, which can then be further processed by other 2d illustration packages.

• 3.0

Adobe InDesign (1999) 9 Publishing Windows

Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing tool that replaced Aldus/Adobe PageMaker. Initially it competed with Quark XPress

• 1.0
• 1.5
• 2.0

Adobe PageMill (1997) 5 Publishing MacOS Windows

PageMill, from Adobe, is a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get web page authoring tool. It was discontinued in February 2000, due to the acquisition and promotion of Adobe GoLive.

• 2.0
• 3.0

Adobe PressReady (1999) 0 Publishing Windows

Adobe PressReady is a professional printing and proofing tool that was aimed for selected inkjet printers to allow better color reproduction from screen to print. Requires Windows 95/98 with at least 48 MB RAM, otherwise NT 4.0 with 64 MB RAM. Supported printer models were: Canon BJC-8500, Epson Stylus Color 800, 850, 1520, and 3000, and HP DeskJet 895C, 1120C, and 2000C. The choice of printers were supposedly what inkjet printers graphic designers were using at the time.

• 1.0

Adobe Streamline (1992) 5 Graphics Publishing Windows

Adobe Streamline is an image conversion and manipulation tool that aids conversion of bit-mapped images in to PostScript line art for use in tools such as Adobe Illustrator.

• 4.0

AppleWorks (1986) 2 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database MacOS Mac OS X

AppleWorks is an all-in-one Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Database, Graphics Editor, and Presentations tool. The original product was a text-based product for the Apple II. The Apple Macintosh and Windows versions were forked from ClarisWorks in 1998 by Apple. At the time, Apple was under a lot of pressure to have a direct alternative to Microsoft Office. There were serious concerns that Microsoft might pull Microsoft Office for the Macintosh from development.

• 5.x
• 6.x

ArcView GIS (1996) 20 Graphics Other Database Windows

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

• 3.3

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

• 5.x
• For Kids 1.0

CorelDraw! (1989) 56 Graphics Publishing Windows

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.

• 7.0

Expert Stationery Shop (1998) 1 Publishing Windows

Expert Stationery Shop is a budget-oriented graphics program that specialized in quickly and easily creating glitzy looking business related documents, such as letterhead, envelopes, fax cover sheets, business cards, signs, and awards. It features specialized clipart, extra TrueType fonts, extra text effects, and a logo creation tool.

• 1.0

FileMaker (1984) 8 Database MacOS Windows

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 4.x
• Pro 5.x

IBM Small Business Suite (2000) 0 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Server Database Windows Linux

IBM Small Business Suite for Linux V1.6 is a Development Platform with a Set of Personal Productivity Tools. It was intended to simplify businesses transitioning to "e-business" by providing a foundation on which users could “webify” their businesses. It includes IBM and Lotus middleware products for Linux and Productivity tools for Windows.

• 1.x

Instant Artist / Print Artist (1992) 22 Graphics Publishing Novelty Windows

Instant Artist, later renamed to Print Artist, is a greeting card and sign creation program that uses vectorized graphics. It was created by The Pixellite Group, the original authors of The Print Shop, and published in 1992 by Autodesk. It was later sold by Sierra On-line. It features a high quality set of generic reusable clip art. The clip art uses vector based technology that was also used in BannerMania.

• 4.0
• 6.0
• 8.0

JetForm FormFlow (1997) 1 Database Windows

FormFlow is a comprehensive business form and workflow automation tool. It is designed to interface with many different kinds of databases and many different e-mail, network, and fax sources. The "Filler" is essentially just the client runtime and does not include form creation or management abilities.

• 2.x

Lotus SmartSuite (1992) 54 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations PIM Database Windows 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.

• 97
• 9.0
• 9.1
• For OS2 Warp 4
• 9.5
• 9.6
• 9.7
• 9.8

Microsoft Access (1992) 77 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

• 97

Microsoft FrontPage (1995) 31 Publishing Windows

Microsoft FrontPage is a WYSIWYG HTML editor/Cuisinart for Microsoft Windows.

• 98 (v3)

Microsoft Greetings (1997) 3 Publishing Novelty Windows

Microsoft Greetings is a greeting card maker for Microsoft Windows 9x/NT. It was made in conjunction with Hallmark.

• Workshop 2.0
• 99 (3.0)

Microsoft Office (1991) 308 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.

• 2000
• 2001 (Mac)
• XP (2002 Beta)

Microsoft Publisher (1991) 21 Publishing Windows

Publisher is a desktop publishing tool from Microsoft geared towards ease of use with the home user. Microsoft publisher can be used to created professional looking newsletters, flyers, forms, and more. It includes guides and wizards that walk users through creation of common document types, while still offering powerful flexibility.

• 98 (5.0)

Microsoft Vizact (1999) 0 Publishing Windows

Microsoft Vizact 2000, was an application used to create HTML+TIME documents, adding effects such as animation.

• 2000

Microsoft Works (1986) 115 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database Windows

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.

• 4.5
• 5.x
• 6.0
• 9.0

My Advanced MailList (1991) 2 Database Windows

My Advanced MailList is a comprehensive mailing list manager database that supports a wide variety of label formats, embedded graphics, import/export with other databases, and printing POST-NET barcodes.

• 1.x (Win)