Killer Application

A computer application is a software program that performs a specific function, such as a word-processing or spreadsheet program. The earliest usage of the phrase killer application, or killer app, denoted a computer application so useful and popular that it would provide potential users with the motivation to purchase the hardware needed to run it. The software program would then be known as the killer application of the particular hardware. For example, spreadsheet programs were once identified as the killer application of personal computers, because people would buy PCs specifically to use spread sheet programs.

Later, the term killer application came to be used more generally to refer to any extremely successful computer program. In this sense, rather than being the killer application of a particular type of hardware, a program might be the killer application for a particular business, organization, or industry. In this sense, a computer start-up company seeks to find the killer application that will enable it to survive. The term has also found a use outside the computer industry, and has been used to describe the successful application of other types of technology.

The term killer application was first used to refer to electronic spreadsheet programs. By some accounts, it was first applied to the VisiCalc spreadsheet program, which is credited with helping sell the Apple II computer to business users; previously, computers were primarily of interest to programmers, computer enthusiasts, and other electronic hobbyists. Other accounts indicate that the term was first used in the mid-1980s to refer to Lotus 1-2-3, another spreadsheet program that similarly helped foster the personal-computer revolution, during which PCs were sold in large numbers both to individual businesspeople and to home users. Accounts that identify Lotus 1-2-3 as the first designated killer application indicate that the term was then retroactively applied to VisiCalc, in recognition of VisiCalc's similar role with regard to Apple computers.

Spreadsheet programs were the killer application for PCs, because they gave a new set of people a reason to buy a personal computer. Both email and the World Wide Web have similarly been described as the killer application for the Internet—email because it is arguably the largest single application in use on the Internet, and the Web because it made the Internet more accessible and easier to use. Web browsers have [Page 273]also been described as the killer application both for the Internet and for PCs, now that the Internet is recognized by many as a valuable resource.

The difference between the earlier, narrower definition and the later, looser one recently figured in an important legal case. In the well-known battle of U.S. vs. Microsoft, a key issue concerned whether or not Microsoft had violated anti-trust statutes by including its Web browser as part of its more popular operating system. Bill Gates, the head of Microsoft Corporation, was specifically questioned in deposition about his definition of killer application. Gates had purportedly written an essay that referred to word processors and spreadsheets as the killer apps for PCs in the 1980s, and that identified Web browsers as the latest killer app.

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