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Microsoft Enters Spreadsheets With Multiplan, Excel's Predecessor
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Microsoft's first spreadsheet, Multiplan, launched in 1982, running on CP/M and later MS-DOS. It was soon eclipsed by Lotus 1-2-3, which dominated the IBM PC, but the lessons of Multiplan's shortcomings — weak graphics and a limited macro language — directly shaped its far more successful successor, Excel. Multiplan marked Bill Gates's push to make Microsoft an applications powerhouse, not just a maker of operating systems and programming languages.
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