# Productivity software > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Productivity_software > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Productivity_software.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_software > Source revision: 1343742458 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) {{Short description|Software programs that increase productivity}} {{Update|date=November 2022}} '''Productivity software''' (also called '''personal productivity software''' or '''office productivity software'''{{cite web|title=Office Productivity Software|url=https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/66246/office-productivity-software|website=[PC Magazine](/source/PC_Magazine) Encyclopedia|publisher=[Ziff Davis](/source/Ziff_Davis)|access-date=30 November 2014}}) is application [software](/source/software) used for producing information (such as [document](/source/document)s, [presentation](/source/presentation)s, [worksheet](/source/worksheet)s, [database](/source/database)s, [chart](/source/chart)s, [graphs](/source/Information_graphics), [digital paintings](/source/digital_paintings), [electronic music](/source/electronic_music) and [digital video](/source/digital_video)).{{cite web|title=Productivity Software|url=https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/49780/productivity-software|website=PC Magazine Encyclopedia|publisher=[Ziff Davis](/source/Ziff_Davis)|access-date=30 November 2014}} Its names arose from it increasing [productivity](/source/productivity), especially of individual [office workers](/source/white-collar_worker), from [typists](/source/Data_entry_clerk) to [knowledge worker](/source/knowledge_worker)s, although its scope is now wider than that. Office suites, which brought [word processing](/source/word_processor), [spreadsheet](/source/spreadsheet), and [relational database](/source/relational_database) programs to the [desktop](/source/desktop_computer) in the 1980s, are the core example of productivity software. They revolutionized the office with the magnitude of the productivity increase they brought as compared with the pre-1980s office environments of typewriters, paper filing, and handwritten lists and ledgers. In the United States, as of 2015, some 78% of "middle-skill" occupations (those that call for more than a [high school](/source/high_school) diploma but less than a [bachelor's degree](/source/bachelor's_degree)) required the use of productivity software.{{cite web |title=Crunched by the Numbers: The Digital Skills Gap in the Workforce |url=http://burning-glass.com/research/digital-skills-gap/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316211545/http://burning-glass.com/research/digital-skills-gap/ |archive-date=2016-03-16 |publisher=Burning Glass Technologies |date=March 2015 |access-date=2025-06-23 }} ==Details== Productivity software traditionally runs directly on a computer. For example, [Plus/4](/source/Plus%2F4) model of computer contains in [ROM](/source/Read-only_memory) for applications of productivity software. Productivity software is one of the reasons people use [personal computer](/source/personal_computer)s. ==Office suite== [[File:LibreOffice 7.2.4.1 Writer Calc Impress and Draw screenshot.png|thumb|[LibreOffice](/source/LibreOffice), an example of an office suite, showing Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw]] An '''office suite''' is a bundle of productivity software (a [software suite](/source/software_suite)) intended to be used by [office worker](/source/white-collar_worker)s. The components are generally distributed together, have a consistent [user interface](/source/user_interface) and usually can interact with each other, sometimes in ways that the [operating system](/source/operating_system) would not normally allow.{{cite web|title=Office Suite|url=https://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/48311/office-suite|website=PC Magazine Encyclopedia|publisher=[Ziff Davis](/source/Ziff_Davis)|access-date=30 November 2014}} The earliest office suite for personal computers was [MicroPro International](/source/MicroPro_International)'s [StarBurst](/source/StarBurst) in the early 1980s, comprising the [WordStar](/source/WordStar) word processor, the CalcStar spreadsheet and the DataStar database software.{{cite web |url=http://www.dvorak.org/blog/whatever-happened-to-wordstar-2/ |title=Whatever Happened to Wordstar? |author=John C. Dvorak |author-link=John C. Dvorak |access-date=2015-08-22}} Other suites arose in the 1980s, and [Microsoft Office](/source/Microsoft_Office) came to dominate the market in the 1990s,''A Brief History of Computing,'' by Gerard O'Regan, [https://books.google.com/books?id=X7kWyJXB7z0C&pg=PA87 p. 87] a position it retains {{as of|2024|lc=yes||df=}}. During the 1990s, office suite products gained popularity by offering bundles of applications that, when bought as part of a suite, effectively discounted the individual applications, with four or five applications being bundled for the price of two applications bought separately. When faced with such potential savings, customers could be "tempted by the suite, rather than the value of a particular product", and by 1994 more than 60 percent of the sales of Microsoft Word and around 70 percent of the sales of Microsoft Excel were as part of sales of Microsoft Office. Such considerations had an impact on vendors of individual applications, often smaller companies, raising concerns that office suites were "stifling innovation", and even established vendors such as [Borland](/source/Borland) and [WordPerfect](/source/WordPerfect) were having to adapt to the suite phenomenon, Borland ultimately deciding to sell its [Quattro Pro](/source/Quattro_Pro) spreadsheet to WordPerfect as the latter sought to assemble its own suite product. The dominant suite vendors, Microsoft and Lotus, downplayed competition and innovation concerns, claiming that users were still able to exercise choice and that "user-driven development" was guiding the evolution of office suites. Another view was that component-based software would eventually emerge, focusing development on more specialised components used by productivity software, empowering "a plethora of third-party developers", and that a "mix and match" approach of such components would adapt to the user's way of working.{{ cite magazine | title=A Bitter-Suite Situation | magazine=Personal Computer World | date=July 1994 | last1=Johnstone | first1=Helen | pages=236 }} === Office suite components === {{See also|Comparison of office suites#Main components}} The base components of office suites are: * [Word processor](/source/Word_processor) * [Spreadsheet](/source/Spreadsheet) * [Presentation program](/source/Presentation_program) Other components include: * [Database](/source/Database) software * [Graphics suite](/source/Graphics_suite) ([raster graphics editor](/source/raster_graphics_editor), [vector graphics editor](/source/vector_graphics_editor), [image viewer](/source/image_viewer)) * [Desktop publishing](/source/Desktop_publishing) software * [Formula editor](/source/Formula_editor) * [Diagramming](/source/Diagramming) software * [Email client](/source/Email_client) * [Communication](/source/Communication) software * [Personal information manager](/source/Personal_information_manager) * [Notetaking](/source/Notetaking) * [Groupware](/source/Groupware) * [Project management software](/source/Project_management_software) * [Table (information)](/source/Table_(information)) * [Web log analysis software](/source/Web_log_analysis_software) ==See also== {{Div col|colwidth=30em}} * [Integrated software](/source/Integrated_software) * [List of office suites](/source/List_of_office_suites) * [List of collaborative software](/source/List_of_collaborative_software) * [List of personal information managers](/source/List_of_personal_information_managers) * [List of PDF software](/source/List_of_PDF_software) * [List of software that supports Office Open XML](/source/List_of_software_that_supports_Office_Open_XML) * [List of software that supports OpenDocument](/source/List_of_software_that_supports_OpenDocument) * [Comparison of office suites](/source/Comparison_of_office_suites) * [Comparison of word processors](/source/Comparison_of_word_processors) * [Comparison of spreadsheet software](/source/Comparison_of_spreadsheet_software) * [Comparison of note-taking software](/source/Comparison_of_note-taking_software) * [Online office suite](/source/Online_office_suite) * [Online spreadsheet](/source/Online_spreadsheet) * [Online word processor](/source/Online_word_processor) * [Wireless clicker](/source/Wireless_clicker) {{Div col end}} ==References== {{Reflist}} ==External links== {{office suites}} Category:Productivity software Category:Personal information managers --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Productivity software](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_software) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_software?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.