Upon its launch nearly four decades ago, VisiCalc rapidly became Apple’s killer software product and had people lining up to buy Apple computers just to run this one application. Even though VisiCalc didn’t fare well with time (they lost their market dominance in 1983 with the launch of Lotus 1-2-3) they were critical to the popularisation of personal computers. While ipushpull is not trying to compare itself to the revolutionary Apple software, we found connections between the core tenets of our software and that of the 1979 first-ever spreadsheet.
VisiCalc, which stands for “visible calculator”, was the first-ever spreadsheet program for personal computers. Initially released in 1979, VisiCalc is largely credited with turning the computer into an agile business tool. This was the first responsive program where you could make a change in one section of a sheet and all related values in the sheet would update automatically. Conventional programming and computer use were thought of as sequential – a chain of events where one step followed another. Other financial programs were not interactive and, most importantly, they were not created for personal computers.
VisiCalc took personal computers from a hobby to a serious business tool with easy-to-use spreadsheets. iPushPull aims to make this business tool a more effective communication tool. The traditional route for sharing data in a business is to make changes to one spreadsheet, send it as an email attachment to a colleague or save it to a file-sharing service, and then wait to hear back with your colleague’s input. The iPushPull platform easily integrates with desktop MS Excel. By downloading our plugin you can share data instantly with the people you want to share it with, regardless of where they are. No waiting for changes to be made, or going through a list of files and emails sequentially to change data or fix errors.
Since its creation, the spreadsheet has grown in complexity and capabilities, but its core use has stayed the same. As a powerful computing and database tool, spreadsheets have evolved to near perfection, but communication among and through spreadsheets must now be addressed with services such as iPushPull. Our seamless integration with Excel gives users the ability to take their spreadsheets to the next level.
Photo credit: opal nova via Small Kitchen / CC BY-ND
