The electronic spreadsheet has been in existence since 1978, but it was 1982 that Microsoft became
involved. The first major leap occurred in 1978 when VisiCalc was created by Dan Bricklin, a student at
Harvard Business School. It was basic software, capable of producing a spreadsheet of only 5 columns by
20 rows. Bob Frankston partnered with Bricklin to create the version that eventually hit the markets and
became a major success.
The next major spreadsheet success after VisiCalc was Lotus 1-2-3, created by a team headed by Mitch
Kapor in 1983. Lotus 1-2-3 improved on VisiCalc by including charting, graphing, rudimentary and basic
database functions in addition to VisiCalc’s calculation capabilities. It became a huge success, far
outshining VisiCalc.
In 1982, while major progress was being made by Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft developed their own
spreadsheet application called MultiPlan. Developed to work on CP/M and MS-DOS based systems it
was roundly beaten by Lotus 1-2-3 on MS-DOS based platforms. MultiPlan was improved, then in 1985
was renamed Excel and, for the first time, included a graphical interface. It was usable only on the Apple
Mac, which first came into production in 1984. After Microsoft produced (and stabilised) the Windows
operating system, Excel was re-engineered for this new platform and in 1987 Microsoft produced the first
version of Excel for windows, called Excel 2.0 and by 1988 began to outsell Lotus 1-2-3 and the
emerging QuatroPro. In 1993, Microsoft released Excel v5.0 for Windows which included VBA (Visual
Basic for Applications), aka Macros. This opened up almost unlimited possibilities in automation of
repetitive tasks for crunching numbers, process automation, and presenting data for businesses.
1. 1985 Version 1, for the Macintosh was released.
2. 1987 The first Windows version was labelled "2" to correspond to the Mac version. This included
a run-time version of Windows.
3. 1990 Included toolbars, drawing capabilities, outlining, add-in support, 3D charts, and many
more new features.
4. 1992 The first "popular" version. Included lots of usability features.
5. 1993 A major upgrade. Included multi-sheet workbooks and support for VBA.
6. 1995 Known as Excel 95. The first major 32-bit version of Excel**. Feature-wise, it's very
similar to Excel 5.
7. 1997 Known as Excel 97. A new interface for VBA developers, UserForms, data validation, and
lots more.
8. 1999 Known as Excel 2000. Can use HTML as a native file format, "self-repair" capability,
enhanced clipboard, pivot charts, modeless user forms.
9. 2001 Known as Excel 2002, this is part of Office XP. It has a long list of new features, but most
of them will probably be of little value to the majority of users. Perhaps the most significant
feature is the ability to recover your work when Excel crashes.
10. 2003 It's called Microsoft Office Excel 2003. The new features in this version are:
(a) improved support for XML
(b) a new "list range" feature
(c) Smart Tag enhancements
(d) corrected statistical functions. Most users will not find the upgrade worthwhile.
11. 2007 Finally, some major changes in Excel. For some, the changes may actually be too major.
12. 2010 New features include sparkline graphics, pivot table slicers, an updated Solver, and a 64-bit
version..
13. 2013 New features include a single-document interface, charting enhancements, and
recommended charts and pivot tables.
In present day with the latest release of Excel 2019 and Excel365, Microsoft Excel is the most
familiar, flexible, and widely used business application in the world due to its capability to adapt to
almost any business process. Coupled with the use of other Microsoft Office applications, Word,
Outlook, PowerPoint, etc.,
