On September 30, 1985, Microsoft shipped Excel 1.0 — but not for a Microsoft operating system. The spreadsheet that would go on to dominate offices worldwide launched exclusively for the Apple Macintosh, retailing for $395. Windows didn’t even have a graphical spreadsheet rival yet; that would take another two years.
The choice of platform wasn’t an accident. Microsoft, developing the program under the codename “Odyssey,” wanted to build a spreadsheet around the Mac’s mouse-driven, point-and-click interface — something the dominant spreadsheet of the era, Lotus 1-2-3, couldn’t match with its keyboard-only, command-line design. Lotus was slow to move to a graphical interface, and that hesitation gave Excel a real head start in the market it was born into. When Excel finally arrived on Windows in 1987 (confusingly labeled version 2.0 to match the Mac lineage), it was essentially a port of the Mac original, meaning the modern spreadsheet as most people know it really got its start on Apple hardware.
It’s a reminder that some of the most Windows-associated software in history had to prove itself on a rival’s machine first. Excel wouldn’t become the spreadsheet standard until years later, but its GUI-first approach on the Mac set the template that both Lotus and, eventually, Microsoft’s own Windows software would have to follow.
Source: Low End Mac, The Register
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