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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.

Microsoft Word (1983)

130 Word Processor DOS MacOS Unix OS2 Windows

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.

Microsoft Works (1986)

104 Word Processor Spreadsheet Communications Database MacOS DOS 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.

WordPerfect (1983)

91 Word Processor DOS Other MacOS OS2 Unix Windows Linux

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.

Microsoft Money (1992)

59 Financial Windows

Microsoft Money is a home oriented financial management tool. It was designed specifically for Microsoft Windows, and was touted as being easier to use. At its release it competed against products such as Quicken. Microsoft Money was discontinued in 2009.

Lotus SmartSuite (1992)

59 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.

WordStar (1981)

48 Word Processor CPM DOS Windows

WordStar, originally from MicroPro, was a popular word processor during the early 80s. It was ported to a number of CP/M architectures as well as Unix and PC/MS-DOS. It competed directly against many word processors, including WordPerfect, Microsoft Word for DOS, and Multimate. By the late 80s most business word processing had moved to WordPerfect. In the early 90s, Microsoft Word for Windows took over.

Quicken (1989)

31 Financial DOS Windows

Quicken, from Intuit, is a financial management tool for home users. It was first released in 1984 for DOS and later ported to Apple II, Macintosh, and Windows. Intuit also provided a more powerful product, QuickBooks, for small businesses.

Lotus Notes (1993)

29 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.

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THINK C (1988)

13 MacOS

THINK C, originally from THINK Technologies and later Symantec, was a C compiler for the Apple Macintosh. Initially released in 1986 under the name "Lightspeed C", it featured libraries and extensions useful to creating native Macintosh applications. It competed with Macintosh Programmers Workshop.

MacWrite (1984)

12 Word Processor MacOS

MacWrite was one of two applications released with the Apple Macintosh in 1984 - the other being MacPaint. These applications defined the Macintosh, and helped define what users expected from GUI applications.

AmiPro (1991)

11 Word Processor Windows

Ami Pro, also called just Ami initially, was a word processor sold by Samna and later Lotus Software, where it became Lotus Word Pro. Ami was one of the first word processors for Microsoft Windows, beating MS Word by about a year. Other early Windows word processors included NBI Legend and WinText

QuickBooks (1993)

9 Financial DOS Windows

First introduced in 1992, QuickBooks from from Intuit, is an easy to use accounting and bookkeeping program targeted at small businesses and accounting novices. It features check writing, accounts payable and receivable, invoices, cash flow forecasting, and reporting. It provides more functionality than the home-user based Quicken.

Sidekick (1984)

8 Utility PIM DOS OS2 Windows

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.

Professional Write (1986)

8 Word Processor DOS Windows

Professional Write, from Software Publishing Corporation, was a popular word processor for home use during the late 80s and early 90s. It features an easy to use menu system and an integrated spell checker. Professional Write was a revamp and replacement for SPC's earlier PFS:Write.

XyWrite (1984)

7 Word Processor DOS Windows

XyWrite is a word processor for MS-DOS and Windows modeled on the mainframe-based ATEX typesetting system. Popular with writers and editors for its speed and degree of customization, XyWrite was in its heyday the house word processor in many editorial offices, including the New York Times from 1989 to 1993. XyWrite was developed by David Erickson and marketed by XyQuest from 1982 through 1992, after which it was acquired by The Technology Group. The final version for MS-DOS was 4.18 (1993); for Windows, 4.13. An offshoot descendant of XyWrite called Nota Bene is still being actively developed.

Microsoft Exchange (1996)

7 Chat PIM Server Windows

Exchange is a proprietary e-mail and groupware server software from Microsoft for Windows Server. The first version publicly sold was Exchange Server 4.0. The number 4.0 was used as it was a replacement for Microsoft Mail 3.x. At release, unlike other desktop/lan e-mail solutions it featured client/server communications rather than using file sharing, used a powerful messaging protocol, and stored all message and address book information in a database. It eventually evolved to include scheduling and many other functions. The Exchange Client (later Microsoft Outlook) supported rich text formatting, and the ability to create such things as e-mail forms.

PFS:Write (1983)

7 Word Processor DOS

PFS:Write, originally from Software Publishing Corporation and later sold to Spinnaker Software, was an early and easy to use word processor for the IBM PC and Apple II. It was also licensed by IBM as IBM Writing Assistant. It can exchange data between PFS:Graph, PFS:File, and PFS:Report. SPC later replaced PFS:Write with Professional Write. Early versions had no built in spell checker, and were instead used with PFS:Proof.

Volkswriter (1982)

7 Word Processor DOS

Volkswriter, from Lifetree Software Inc, was an early easy to use word processor for the IBM PC. Development of Volkswriter was inspired by the horridness of EasyWriter, and for a brief time it was possibly the only usable word processor for the IBM PC before an IBM version of WordStar was released. The "Deluxe" version will work with larger documents and has more features.

ClarisWorks (1991)

6 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.

Lotus Symphony (1984)

6 Word Processor Spreadsheet Presentations Graphics Communications Database DOS

Lotus Symphony is a an integrated software program that combines five tools: spreadsheet - word processing, graphics, database management, and data communications - in one package. The spreadsheet has similar functionality to Lotus 1-2-3, however it uses a different software "engine". These releases are of the original suite produced by Lotus. For the unrelated suite produced by IBM under the same name, see "IBM Lotus Symphony".

NewWord (1983)

6 Word Processor DOS

NewWord is a clone of WordStar created by former MicroPro employees. It filled a gap for WordStar users as WordStar 3.3 went unupdated, and eventually became the basis for WordStar 4.0.

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DacEasy Accounting (1987)

6 Financial DOS Windows

DacEasy was the first company to offer affordable accounting software geared towards the small business. It was first released in 1985 and had gone through many DOS revisions at the time the Windows version was released.

Calendar Creator Plus (1990)

5 Novelty PIM DOS Windows

Calendar Creator Plus from Vermont Creative Software/Power Up, and later Spinnaker Software, is a tool for creating printed calendars with different styles and custom lists of events.

VisiSpell (1983)

5 Word Processor DOS

VisiSpell is a standalone spell checker for DOS, that is intended for use with VisiCorp VisiWord but can be used with any text document.

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