Microsoft Multiplan
Microsoft Multiplan the first spreadsheet application lunched by Microsoft, which was very popular on CP/M systems..
Lotus1-2-3 is a spreadsheet program was launched by Microsoft In 1982 into market for MS-DOS systems “Do Everything 1-2-3 Does and Do It Better” [Doug Klunder]
The first version of Excel was lunched by Microsoft into the market for Mac Operating System in the year 1985 and for Windows in November 1987. But Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows Operating System. So in the year 1988, Excel had started to outsell Lotus 1-2-3 and helped Microsoft to achieve the position of leading PC software developer this success, defeating Microsoft as a king of the software world. Microsoft pushed its advantage with regular new releases, in every two years.
Later in its lifetime Excel became the target of a trademark grievance by another company already selling a software package named "Excel" in the economics industry as the result of the dispute. So Microsoft was required to refer to the program name as "Microsoft Excel" in all of its official press releases and legal documents. Conversely, over time this exercise has been ignored, and Microsoft cleared up the issue permanently when they purchased the trademark to the other program. Microsoft also encouraged the use of the letters XL as shorthand for the program; while this is no longer common, the program's icon still consists of a formalized grouping of the two letters, and the file extension of the default Excel format is .xls
Microsoft Excel suggestions many user interface twists over the earliest electronic spreadsheets program; on the other hand, the core remains the same as in the original spreadsheet program, VisiCalc: the cells are organised in rows and columns, and contain data or formulas with relative or absolute references to other cells.
Excel was the first spreadsheet program that allowed to the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets such as fonts, character attributes and cell appearance. It also announced intelligent cell re-computation, where only cells are dependent on the cell being modified are updated [previous spreadsheet programs re-computed everything all the time or waited for a specific user command]. Excel has extensive graphing capabilities.
Since 1993, Microsoft Excel has included the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), is a programming language based on Visual Basic which adds the capability to automate tasks in Excel and to provide user defined functions (UDF) for use in worksheets.
VBA is a most powerful addition to the spreadsheet program which, in later versions, includes a fully featured integrated development environment (IDE). Macro recording can produce VBA code replicating user actions, thus allowing simple automation of regular tasks. VBA allows the creation of forms and in-worksheet controls to communicate with the user. The language supports use (but not creation) of ActiveX (COM) DLL's; later versions add support for class modules allowing the use of basic object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques.
The automation functionality provided by VBA has caused Excel to become a target for macro viruses. This was a serious problem in the corporate world until antivirus products began to detect these viruses. Microsoft belatedly took steps to prevent the misuse by adding the ability to disable macros completely, to enable macros when opening a workbook or to trust all macros signed using a trusted certificate..
Lotus1-2-3 is a spreadsheet program was launched by Microsoft In 1982 into market for MS-DOS systems “Do Everything 1-2-3 Does and Do It Better” [Doug Klunder]
The first version of Excel was lunched by Microsoft into the market for Mac Operating System in the year 1985 and for Windows in November 1987. But Lotus was slow to bring 1-2-3 to Windows Operating System. So in the year 1988, Excel had started to outsell Lotus 1-2-3 and helped Microsoft to achieve the position of leading PC software developer this success, defeating Microsoft as a king of the software world. Microsoft pushed its advantage with regular new releases, in every two years.
Later in its lifetime Excel became the target of a trademark grievance by another company already selling a software package named "Excel" in the economics industry as the result of the dispute. So Microsoft was required to refer to the program name as "Microsoft Excel" in all of its official press releases and legal documents. Conversely, over time this exercise has been ignored, and Microsoft cleared up the issue permanently when they purchased the trademark to the other program. Microsoft also encouraged the use of the letters XL as shorthand for the program; while this is no longer common, the program's icon still consists of a formalized grouping of the two letters, and the file extension of the default Excel format is .xls
Microsoft Excel suggestions many user interface twists over the earliest electronic spreadsheets program; on the other hand, the core remains the same as in the original spreadsheet program, VisiCalc: the cells are organised in rows and columns, and contain data or formulas with relative or absolute references to other cells.
Excel was the first spreadsheet program that allowed to the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets such as fonts, character attributes and cell appearance. It also announced intelligent cell re-computation, where only cells are dependent on the cell being modified are updated [previous spreadsheet programs re-computed everything all the time or waited for a specific user command]. Excel has extensive graphing capabilities.
Since 1993, Microsoft Excel has included the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), is a programming language based on Visual Basic which adds the capability to automate tasks in Excel and to provide user defined functions (UDF) for use in worksheets.
VBA is a most powerful addition to the spreadsheet program which, in later versions, includes a fully featured integrated development environment (IDE). Macro recording can produce VBA code replicating user actions, thus allowing simple automation of regular tasks. VBA allows the creation of forms and in-worksheet controls to communicate with the user. The language supports use (but not creation) of ActiveX (COM) DLL's; later versions add support for class modules allowing the use of basic object-oriented programming (OOP) techniques.
The automation functionality provided by VBA has caused Excel to become a target for macro viruses. This was a serious problem in the corporate world until antivirus products began to detect these viruses. Microsoft belatedly took steps to prevent the misuse by adding the ability to disable macros completely, to enable macros when opening a workbook or to trust all macros signed using a trusted certificate..