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. It was usable only on the Apple Mac, which first came into production in 1984. MultiPlan was improved, then in 1985 was renamed Excel and, for the first time, included a graphical interface.
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. In 1982, while major progress was being made by Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft developed their own spreadsheet application called MultiPlan. It became a huge success, far outshining VisiCalc. Lotus 1-2-3 improved on VisiCalc by including charting and basic database functions in addition to VisiCalc’s calculation capabilities. The next major spreadsheet success after VisiCalc was Lotus 1-2-3, created by a team headed by Mitch Kapor in 1983. Bob Frankston partnered with Bricklin to create the version that eventually hit the markets and became a major success. It was basic software, capable of producing a spreadsheet of only 5 columns by 20 rows. The first major leap occurred in 1978 when VisiCalc was created by Dan Bricklin, a student at Harvard Business School.
The electronic spreadsheet has been in existence since 1978, but it was 1982 that Microsoft became involved.
