Killer application

A killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is a computer program that is so useful that people will buy a particular piece of computer hardware, video game console, and/or an operating system simply to run that program.

The first example of a killer application is generally agreed to be the VisiCalc spreadsheet on the Apple II platform. The machine was purchased in the thousands by finance workers (in particular, Bond).

The next example is another spreadsheet, Lotus 1-2-3. Sales of International Business Machines s Personal computer had been slow until 1-2-3 was released, but only months later it was the best-selling computer.

A killer app can provide an important niche market for a non-mainstream platform. Aldus Adobe PageMaker and Adobe Systems PostScript gave the graphic design and desktop publishing niche to the Apple Macintosh in the late 1980s, a niche it retains to this day despite IBM PC compatibles running Microsoft Windows having been capable of running versions of the same applications since the early 1990s.

There have been a number of new uses of the term. For instance the usefulness of E-mail drew many people to use the Internet, while the Mosaic (web browser) web browser is generally credited with the initial rapid popularity of the World Wide Web. The term has also been applied to video games that cause consumers to buy a particular video game console to play them; see killer game.

Developers of new technologies now tend to put a lot of effort into discovering or creating the next killer app for their technology, in the hope that it will be the breakthrough needed to get the technology adopted. This has led to the burgeoning list of features on e.g. mobile telephones, such as text messaging, digital cameras, etc, though many maintain that the killer app for telephone technology is, and always has been, live peer-to-peer voice transmission.

Computer experts sometimes use the phrase with reference to other technologies to explain its significance to laypersons. In this context a killer application refers to a certain usage of that technology that makes the technology popular and successful. The term is especially used when the technology existed before but did not take off before the introduction of the killer application. Examples for this:

technology - killer application

*the telephone (microphone and earphone) - talking to distant beloved ones via a telephone exchange *the steam engine - railroad (although its factory use was of prior significance) *rubber - the pneumatic tire, or raincoats *the gasoline engine - the automobile (though motorboat one-lunger engines were the first widespread sales) *Internet - the World Wide Web *bluetooth - the Bluetooth headsets. The killer application that put Bluetooth technology in most mobile phones

There is also a fairly well known book by Larry Downes and Chunka Mui on this topic: [http://www.killer-apps.com Unleashing The Killer App]