Commercial software
Encyclopedia : C : CO : COM : Commercial software
Commercial software is computer software sold for commercial purposes or that serves commercial purposes. Until the emergence of the Internet, software represented, until the 2000s, the vast majority of all software used and was referred to as shrinkware because software almost always ships in a shrinkwrapped box.
Historically, one of the most important events that have led to the expansion of the retail software market was the Open Letter to Hobbyists by Bill Gates in 1976.
The most famous examples of commercial software are the products offered on the IBM PC and clones in the 1980s and 90s, including famous programs like Lotus 123, Word Perfect and the various parts that make up Microsoft Office. Microsoft Windows is also shrinkware, but is most often pre-installed on the computer.
The rise of the Internet and software licensing schemes has dramatically changed the retail software market. Users are more capable of finding shareware, freeware and free software products as easily as retail. Software sold in stores has dropped dramatically, while the purchasing of software product licenses in bulk has increased for many organizations. The licenses are often sold for a price based on how many users or machines the software will serve. Producers of commercial software have also shifted to providing most all of their software and services over the Internet, including Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Apple Computer.
Commercial software is most often proprietary software, but free software is also used as commercial software. All or parts of software packages and services that support commerce are increasingly made available as free software, including products from RedHat, Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, and Google.
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.