What is the next killer app?

Killer apps were defined as software applications that were so good the user would buy a particular hardware/software platform just to run that app. These applications were shrink wrapped and sold through computer stores for $149 and up. Significant software companies were built on the basis of these killer apps.

VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet, is widely recognized as the first killer app that drove sales of the Apple II. Lotus 123 did the same thing, in a much bigger way for the IBM PC and DOS. Lotus went on to become a very successful software company.

WordPerfect, Borland, Ashton-Tate (databases), Intuit, Adobe, Aldus Page Maker, Peachtree, Macromedia, and many others introduced killer apps that drove PC sales and built successful companies.

Microsoft Office was the biggest killer app of all time driving massive revenues and profits for Microsoft. Today, Office is a mature product that has every imaginable feature.

During the late 80's and 90's advances in processor speed (megahertz to gigahertz) and operating system features drove people to buy new computers just for the speed and usability.

AOL and Netscape were the killer apps of the late 80's and early 90's. Millions of users bought new computers just to use AOL and Netscape to get on the web.

Netscape and AOL flooded the market with free CD's to get people up on the web. Netscape went further and made their browser free and easy to download. This strategic decision changed the software business, and the models for killer apps, forever. In the traditional model Netscape would have been a shrink wrapped software product sold through stores for $149. Instead it was offered for free and started an irreversable trend.

Netscape, Pointcast, Hotmail, Real Media Player, AltaVista, Napster, MapQuest, and Instant Messenger were all free killer apps, or services, that drove lots of system sales. Millions of kids bought computers just so they could use Napster. But, they were not the traditional shrink wrapped software that generated revenues and built companies. These companies changed the software business models forever.

Shareware, Open Source, and Java have contributed to the illusion that software is free. Applications like the browser, email, media player, and IM that would have been killer apps are now free services. These trends have changed the business model and economics of the software business.

It should be noted that computer games were a significant killer app that drove millions of new system purchases and upgrades. Nothing stretches the limits of processors, memory, graphics, and the OS like games. However, games are tending to go off platform to specialized game devices, or online to multiplayer network games. It is doubtful that games will be a big driver of new system sales in the future. PDA's and cellphones are also alternative platforms for killer apps.

Killer apps are not obvious or easy...until 10 years after the fact. If it were obvious everyone would be doing it and every VC would invest. It is never quite that simple.

So, what are the new killer apps? If I knew that I would be starting a company right now. But here are a few areas that will see lots of innovation and potentially drive new system sales.

Voice command, instruction, recognition, transcription, translation
Speech to text, text to speech
Someday we will be able to speak to Microsoft Word, not type with a keyboard
Handwriting recognition
Video compression and search
Digital Rights Management - controlling who, how, when documents get used
RFID will cause an explosion of data that must be collected, sorted, analized, stored, and secured
Bandwidth profiling to give priority to voice and video

Ok, start building your killer apps!

Comments

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

What is the next killer web service?

Yahoo, Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Skype, Wikipedia, Flickr...?

My Favourite Applications and Web Services
http://divedi.blogspot.com/2005/09/my-favourite-applications-and-web.html

[Richard]

Don't forget podcasting ;) the next big thing already happening. Thats why we wrote the tools to create them early in the game

http://www.lionhardt.ca/wps

[Miguel Barrientos]

I consider Google Earth (the desktop application, not the web service) a killer app. Everytime I've showed it to someone they've immediately gone back to their PC and installed it.