killer app

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for killer app - Next: killer micro, Prev: kill file
:killer app: The application that actually makes a mass market for a promising but under-utilized technology. First used in the mid-1980s to describe Lotus 1-2-3 once it became evident that demand for that product had been the major driver of the early business market for IBM PCs. The term was then restrospectively applied to VisiCalc, which had played a similar role in the success of the Apple II. After 1994 it became commonplace to describe the World Wide Web as the Internets killer app. One of the standard questions asked about each new personal-computer technology as it emerges has become "whats the killer app?"
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996* - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)*