20 Killer Apps of IT

C



C was a procedural, block structured programming language that was developed

at Bell Telephone Labs in 1972. C programming provided a shift from

assembly-level coding for applications to developing them in a human-readable

form that would be compiled to machine-readable form for execution. It provided

memory-access through 'pointers' and mapping of machine instructions, due to

which it found varied usage from embedded microcontrollers to supercomputers. It

became the base for other popular languages like C++ to be designed as an

extension to C.

Email



Electronic mail changed the literal meaning of a 'mailbox'. It is no longer

that red bulky metal box hanging outside your door, it is an application running

on your desktop, laptop or even your mobile phone, which displays and stores

text or visual messages from other email users. Technically, it stands for an

Internet system based on Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and the

appropriate server address, which is unique to the workplace. Around mid-90s,

Hotmail created waves by making email a 'use it anywhere, anytime' application

and the best part, it was a free application. The trend still continues.

Enterprise Resource Planning



Manufacturing, supply chain management, HR, data warehousing-all of these

need systems that can integrate all the data and processes of an organization

into a unified system. A typical ERP system will use multiple components of

computer software and hardware to achieve the integration. A key ingredient of

most ERP systems is the use of a unified database to store data for the various

system modules. Initially designed to plan the use of enterprise-wide resources,

current use of the term ERP systems has much broader scope. ERP systems

typically attempt to cover all basic functions of an organization, regardless of

the organization's business or charter.

GUI



This is one of the most impactful applications of today that anyone can

think of. It provided easy to use graphical desktop compared to CUI (character

user interface) based systems. Introduction of GUI in the computing world

simplified the work as one need not to remember commands for getting their work

done on PCs. GUI became popular with Windows and MAC OS which are the most

commonly used operating systems today. GUI application is also incorporated into

embedded devices, mobile phone, ATMs, etc.

IM (Instant Messaging)



Who is not aware of Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, or lately GTalk. These

are the names that come to your mind whenever IM is mentioned. IM saw its

initial days way back in the 1970s mainly on multi-user operating system like

UNIX to facilitate communication between users logged onto the same system. Soon

it caught the attention of people and became the most popular means of real-time

communication via Internet. The fact that you know the presence of the person

immediately as he logs in and they could interact in real-time accounted toward

its instant popularity.

IP Telephony



Also called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Internet telephony,

Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband, IP Telephony

represents the routing of voice conversations over the Internet. The biggest

reason for the popularity of IP Telephony is the fact that it allows 'free

calls', irrespective of the distance between the callers. As licensing battles

still continues, IP telephony is being increasingly used to integrate voice,

videos, and for video conferencing.

Java



Sun Microsystems in 1995 released a programming language named Java, which

was based on C and C++ syntaxes, but had a simpler object model. Java promised

'write-once, run anywhere' with its ability to make apps portable and

platform-independent. So you just had to write a generic code that will work on

any machine having its own Java-run-time without having to change the

source-code. This platform-independence capability proved to be a boon as

computers connected to Internet were on different platforms and Java based apps

could cater to all. All operating systems started coming with Java run-time

environment installed. It not only revolutionized the way the web pages look

today, but has also become a primary language for embedded system devices.

Linux



It is a kernel for operating systems designed for desktop as well as

servers. Being an open source application, it can be used modified and

distributed by anyone. This app helped everyone in understanding how a kernel

system actually works. The first Linux kernel was released on 17th September,

1991, which is now included in each Linux OS such as Fedora, SUSE, Ubuntu, etc.

Earlier Linux was used mostly at server level and not at the desktop level, but

in the recent past we have seen different Linux distros, basically the ones from

RedHat (Fedora) and Novell (openSUSE) which are well suited for the desktop

environment.

P2P Apps



Not many people are aware of the fact that P2P is as old as USENET, but it

was Napster who revolutionized P2P. In 1999, when Shawn Fanning launched

Napster, it was an instant hit and by Feb 2001 it had at least 50 million users

when it closed, all thanks to lawsuits from RIAA and other music groups. But P2P

apps didn't stop there, and then it was Kaaza's turn, and now Limewire and

Bittorrent that has made P2P a part of our lives. While P2P lets users share

their files over Internet, it has badly affected the music industry.

Ping



In December 1983, when Mike Muuss wrote a program about troubleshooting an

IP network, which he named Ping, he wouldn't have thought how much impact this

small utility is going to make. Now, whenever something is wrong with network

connectivity, the very first thing that everyone does is ping. The ICMP support

was later on added to Ping by Phil Dykstra.

PXE/RPL



PXE (Preboot eXecution Environment) was initially introduced by Intel as part of
the Wired for Management framework. It uses protocols like IP, DHVP and GUID,

and Universal Network Device Interface. PXE opened new possibilities of remotely

booting a network system, launching setups on servers, etc. Similar to PXE was

RPL (Remote Initial Program Load) which uses Novell Netware boot method for

remote booting.

RDBMS



Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) was a DBMS that maintained the
relationship between the data stored in the tables of the database. This system

was invented by E.F.Codd and followed a set of 12 rules. This system maintained

the referential integrity of data by preserving the relationships between

tables, so that effect on one table set could be reflected to other related

tables also. This type of database management system was appropriate for large

organizational data, where relationship between data tables was crucial to

manage. Various DBMS vendors adopted this system to provide RDBMS solutions like

Microsoft, Oracle and IBM who became the major players in this arena.

Search Engine



Since its arrival, search engine has revolutionized the way we browse

Internet. Millions of people use it every day on a regular basis making it one

of the hottest applications of all times. Think about life without Google now,

or for that matter, had the first ever search engine (Archie) didn't saw day of

light in the 1990's, Internet might have not been what it is. It gained

popularity in the mid 90s, when several search engines were developed with one

following the other. The Archies was followed by Veronica, and then came the

Jughead and so on. What completely captivated the search engine market was the

arrival of Google.

SMS



Short Messaging Service, was defined as the part of the GSM series standard

in 1985 as the means of sending text to and from GSM mobile handsets. When it

was conceptualized, no one thought that it will be used for sending text

messages. In fact the first text message was send as late as 1992. Soon it

became a popular means of communication and gave cell phone a different

dimension altogether. Initially it took time to start off with very few people

using the facility, as the service providers weren't clear about the charging

system. But by the early 2000 it became one of the most used application in a

cell phone.

Spreadsheets



Back in the days when the primary use of computers was to process payrolls

and financial records, spreadsheets were conceptualized to maintain electronic

records of financial transactions, reduce the burden of using calculators, and

in turn overcoming possible human error. Two individuals, Rene K. Pardo and Remy

Landau, in 1971, filed a US patent for the 'electronic spreadsheet', which

finally took form of  Lotus 1-2-3, Borland Quattro, and has today morphed

into Microsoft Excel and numerous other open source clones. Today, it is the

preferred medium for storing everything from transaction details, catalogues to

any form of organized data.

Virtualization Apps



Virtualization has been around since 1960. Initially, it was started for

mainframe computers in order to utilize their resources to the optimum level

because under normal conditions the hardware utilization was not more than 40%.

Due to its benefits like cost, power and space savings virtualization

application became increasingly popular among organizations. Virtualization has

come a long way with different virtualization techniques organizations deploy as

server , application, OS, storage virtualization, etc Virtualization apps has

also paved way for Portable workspaces.

Visual Basic



Visual Basic (VB) is a third-generation, event driven programming language

from Microsoft. It was derived from the classic BASIC language and its claim to

fame was its ability to create complex GUI applications and flowing out of a

better and user friendly platform, where drag and drop applications were

available for forms, interfaces and other operations. It spoon-fed BASIC

programmers and gave them an all new stage for creating NET-enabled applications

and programs.

Web Browser



Mosaic was the first GUI Web browser released in 1993 that changed the way

Internet surfing is done. Earlier there were just text-based browsers that

couldn't open https://www.pcquest.com/2007/images//, which was not the case with Mosaic that rendered https://www.pcquest.com/2007/images//

embedded with text. The graphical Web browsers with their ease of usage made

Internet's pool of information available to a much larger public domain that was

earlier just restricted to researchers. The coming years saw the GUI browsers

being launched by Microsoft and Netscape and then came the Firefox. Web browsers

attributed to the popularity of Internet during mid nineties.

Web Server



The Internet is said to have created a new ecosystem of individuals who are

democratic in nature-and the powerhouse of this ecosystem is the Web server. The

computer program that is responsible for accepting HTTP requests from clients

otherwise known as Web browsers, and serving them HTTP responses along with

optional data contents in the form of webpages such as HTML documents that

include https://www.pcquest.com/2007/images//, sound etc. This 'powerhouse' is rapidly shrinking in size but

growing in functionality and power.

Wiki



Wiki gave a platform for both Intranet and Internet to host websites that
allowed its users to enter data, information as well as facts, and for that they

needn't to have Web development skills. Ward Cunningham started developing Web

Wiki and installed it on Internet Domain c2.com on March 25, 1995, and named it

WikiWikiWeb. Since then it has gained popularity and has become one of the most

downloaded application. Wikipedia is one of the best and most popular examples

of a website running on Wiki.