Microsoft Excel is a
spreadsheet program written and distributed by
Microsoft for computers using the
Microsoft Windows operating system and
Apple Macintosh computers. It is overwhelmingly the dominant spreadsheet application available for these platforms and has been so since version 5 (1993) and its bundling as part of
Microsoft Office. It was originally developed for the Mac in 1985 and the first Windows version (
1987) was therefore 2. The current version is 10, also called 2002.
It has extensive graphing capabilities, added support for Visual Basic for Applications as a scripting language in 1993 (which makes it a prime target for macro viruses), and offers a large number of user interface tweaks, but its essence is little different from the original spreadsheet, VisiCalc.
Most versions often have a very cool easter egg.
See: VisiCalc, MultiPlan, Lotus 1-2-3.