In 2020 alone, the number of personal computers sold, worldwide, was greater than 450 million. A figure that is growing strongly due to the Pandemic and the strong development of work from home. Behind every computer, however, there is software. Software are the computer programs that can be executed by computers. These include, for example, the operating system, applications, programs, applications (or apps).
In today’s article we are going to analyze what are the most popular PC software in the last 17 years, from 2004 to 2021 as well as see other interesting data about software in general.
Most Popular PC Software – 2004/2021
Let’s start by taking a “plunge” into the past. In January 2004, what were the most popular computer software in the world? At the first place, in this special ranking, we find Kazaa followed by DivX and Adobe Acrobat. KaZaA media Deskot was a file sharing application that had enormous success between 2001 and 2006. Thanks to this software it was possible to exchange MP3 music files and movies. Kazaa. Following the enormous success and copyright problems arising from the exchange of content in 2004, the development of the software stopped. Development that was actually resumed in the following years by some programmers.
In second place, in January 2004, we saw how there was DivX and in third place Adobe Acrobat. Adobe Acrobat is an application made by Adobe to create and edit files in PDF format. The first version dates back to June 1993. Adobe Acrobat having been produced by the same company that developed the .pdf format. In the first 15 positions we find software that is still very popular, such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Excel, Photoshop and others that over time have changed or simply their development has ended. To give an example Windows Live Messenger that for years has been a free messaging client (produced by Microsoft) has as its last version that of 2012. The retirement of the software began in 2013 and was completed in 2014 even in China.
And in January 2021, what are the most popular software? In the first place we find on the one hand Microsoft Excel and on the other Microsoft Word. But in the first positions there are not only the two Microsoft giants but also Zoom Meetings. In fact, due to the pandemic and the development of Smart Working, Zoom Meetings has become one of the most searched software in the world. The California-based teleconferencing company, founded in 2011, has been booming between 2020 and 2021. In April 2020, Zoom is estimated to have surpassed 300 million daily meeting attendees. A figure that also allowed the company to significantly increase revenues (source: zoom).
In the first 15 positions of the most popular software in the world in addition to Microsoft software and Zoom Meetings we also find Freemake Downloader, Discord, Chrome, Spotify, Steam etc.. Closes the 15th position Firefox with a figure of 672 thousand searches on google in January 2021.
Excel evolution – 1985 to 2021
Microsoft Excel has been at the top of the world’s most popular software list for several years now. Except for a period when Excel was overtaken by Zoom (in the very first months of the pandemic), this software has always been at the top of the list in recent years. Excel is a programme produced by Microsoft that allows you to manage spreadsheets.
Microsoft released the first version of Excel for the Macintosh on 30 September 1985 and the first Windows version was 2.05 (for synchronisation with Macintosh version 2.2) in November 1987.
Source and links
The popularity figure was created using data from Google Trends. Although ‘partial’, this data indicates the interest in a certain software.
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