VisiCalc on Apple ][ and
PageMaker on Macintosh were typical
KillerApplications. Mosaic and the
WorldWideWeb have been the most famous
KillerApplications these days. People had to buy computers to run the
KillerApplications on. The origin of the word is :
Lotus 123 was the "
KillerApp" for the PC.
It's interesting that you list
PageMaker as a
KillerApp for the Mac. Certainly it was the "right software in the right place at the right time", but it was only a niche product for the mac at that time.
Also,
PageMaker was released at the same time for Windows 1.0, and with almost identical functionality. (
But Windows 1.0 didn't support PostScript printers) I can't think of any other serious application that was released under
WindowsOne. (
CorelDraw and Excel were released for Windows 2.0, and Word for Windows was released just before Windows 3.0.)
Not that I used
PageMaker for Windows 1.0 - it was just too slow.
VenturaPublisher ran under Gem (from
DigitalResearch), was fast, and had style sheets which
PageMaker lacked at the time.
At the time, there was no dominance of MS-Windows; there were many competing windowing systems. There was IBM
TopView, and something less graphical from
QuarterDeck (sorry can't remember the name).
Sorry, rambling a bit off topic here.
The next question is: what will be the next
KillerApp, and how can I make enough money to retire from it?
See also
KillerApp -- and may the
BestRefactorer win.