Bricklin, student at Harvard Business School, had to perform some analytical tasks as part of his case study. He had two options to do it, either do it by hand or use an awkward mainframe program. He envisioned “an electronic blackboard and electronic chalk in a classroom”.
He had managed to create the first working prototype model of his concept, which named VisiCalc. It is a program for Apple II computer. He recruited Frankston to help him write the code.
VisiCalc was a huge success. More than 700,000 copies of the program were sold. It was almost single handedly responsible for the success of the Apple II personal computer. By early 1980s, Lotus 1-2-3 was the leading spreadsheet. Lotus had bought and then discontinued VisiCalc. Borland’s Quattro Pro was another well-known product at that time.
In 1982, Microsoft developed its first electronic spreadsheet program called MultiPlan. In 1985, Microsoft Corporation came up with Excel for the Macintosh computer. This product was remarkable for its use pull down-menus and a point and click device called a mouse. Other spreadsheets use a command line interface that required knowledge of cryptic DOS command.
When Microsoft named its spreadsheet software “Excel,” it apparently did not now that Manufacturers Hanover Trust already had an automated banking program called Excel. As part of the settlement for trademark infringement, Microsoft agreed to refer always to its product as Microsoft Excel.
In the year 1993, with the release of version 5 Excel replaced Lotus 1-2-3 as the industry standard for spreadsheets.
History of Microsoft Spreadsheet
