Killer App

Killer application - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Another "killer app", Space Invaders, was released a year later on the ... The Halo series for the Xbox is also considered a "killer app. ...
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Unleashing the Killer App
Strategists Downes and Mui demonstrate how managers are rewriting the rules of business in the digital age (Harvard Business School Press featured title, Spring 1998)
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...because life is a killer app...
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Welcome to the Killer App Expo and Conference 2007
Killer App Conference & Expo is the first and only venue to explore the ... Attendance at Killer App Conference and Expo will give you unparalleled access ...
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A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app), in the jargon of computer programmers and video gamers, has come to mean any program, particularly a minor one, that is ingeniously coded or unexpectedly useful. Originally, and more broadly, "killer app" has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it provides the core value of some larger technology, such as a video game console, software, operating system, or piece of computer hardware. In this sense, a killer app substantially increases sales of the hardware that supports it.

Spreadsheets ], the earliest generally agreed example of a killer application.

One of the first examples of a killer application is generally agreed to be the VisiCalc spreadsheet on the Apple II platform (e.g.D.J. Power, A Brief History of Spreadsheets, DSSResources.COM, v3.6, 8 August 2004). The machine was purchased in the thousands by finance workers (in particular, Bond (finance)) on the strength of this one program. The next example is another spreadsheet, Lotus 1-2-3. Sales of International Business Machines's Personal computer had been slow until 1-2-3 was made public; the IBM became the best-selling computer only a few months after Lotus 1-2-3's initial release.

A killer app can provide an important niche market for a non-mainstream platform. Aldus Adobe PageMaker and Adobe Systems PostScript gave the graphic design and desktop publishing niche to the Apple Macintosh in the late 1980s, a niche it retains to this day despite the fact that IBM PC compatibles running Microsoft Windows have been capable of running versions of the same applications since the early 1990s.

Trends There have been a number of new uses of the term. For instance the usefulness of e-mail drew many people to use computer networks, while the Mosaic (web browser) web browser is generally credited with the popularization of the World Wide Web and hence the Internet. The term has also been applied to Video game that cause consumers to buy a particular video game console or gaming hardware. Nintendo 64 saw much success with the releases of Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The Game Boy line saw Tetris (Game Boy), and following Game Boy iterations saw the highly successful Pokémon series. Software developers of new platforms now tend to focus considerable effort and funds into discovering or creating the next "killer app" for a given technology.

Selected applications for computer systems

Apple II: VisiCalc
Amiga: Video Toaster
IBM PC: WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Novell Netware
Macintosh: Adobe PageMaker
NeXT: Lotus Improv
Windows 3.1: Microsoft Office
OS/2: Galactic Civilizations