First ever spreadsheet program

The main tool of choice for most analysts is spreadsheet software. The first ever spreadsheet software, called Visicalc, was invented in and was initially released on the Apple platform.

As this occurred before software patents were invented it was never patented. In fact, many Excel users complained that it was too irritating. It resulted in Microsoft changing the policy regarding this tool. In this year, Excel was introduced. Excel Office Assistant was still present, but it was much less intrusive than in the previous version of Excel.

There are much more improvements in Excel than in the previous versions. One of them is the new interface, in which the main role is played by the Ribbon. Excel 1. Later on, they transitioned Excel to the Windows environment, and there was no looking back. Since then, Microsoft Excel has been the most dominant spreadsheet software over the last two decades.

Although Microsoft Excel has remained the ultimate spreadsheet software even today, there remain several notable competitor spreadsheet applications on the market.

There have also been a number of non-proprietary, free, open-source alternative applications such as OpenOffice. Spreadsheets have come a long way over the past few decades, and they are continuing to become more intuitive, flexible and powerful than ever. In just the past few years, spreadsheet software now offers powerful analytical tools to turn data into useful insights.

The most notable is their visual representation, that now helps businesses project future developments for their companies. Moreover, cloud-based spreadsheets are now a key part of many organizations. This has revolutionized the way businesses can work, allowing offline collaboration anywhere, increasing productivity for many.

The latest phenomenon in the spreadsheet world is the automation of spreadsheet processes. The potential of these automation tools is almost limitless, too. Now, businesses can build and scale a variety of complex systems through the simple connection of spreadsheets.

VisiCalc was an instant success and the duo were able to sell around 1 million copies of the program. After the phenomenal success of VisiCalc, a team headed by Mitch Kapor in , developed a new spreadsheet program called Lotus Mitch and his team power packed Lotus with charting, graphing and rudimentary database capabilities along with the basic arithmetic.

This made Lotus a new favourite in the industry. Although, before this in Microsoft had already launched Muliplan but it was outshined by Lotus