Business software

Business software has a very simple definition. It is any software that is used by a business to help that business be more productive or to measure that productivity. That said, there are many different types of businesses each with a unique set of needs. And there are just as many software options to provide solutions.

Most offices today utilize some type of office software. For the office that operates PC computers, the likely software is Microsoft Office. Office 2007 is a software package that includes the programs needed for communications.

Of course communications took place in offices long before the use of computers and business software. Secretaries relied on typewriters and carbon paper. Today’s word processor is Word 2007. Much more powerful and flexible than a typewriter, Word 2007 allows the user to type in various text that can be used in multiple documents. Images and graphics such as charts can be imported in the document to illustrate important details.

Excel 2007 is today’s version of a spreadsheet with the built in power of a calculator. The spreadsheet function can be used for something as basic as a list of addresses. Each item is placed in a separate column.

Then because the programs are designed to work together, Word and Excel come together to produce a standard letter customized for each person on the list. Not only can each person’s name, address and salutation be placed at the top of the letter, the user can customize portions of the body to have recipient-specific information. This allows the user to produce a large number of personalized letters in a fraction of the time it would have taken with older technology.

Outlook 2007 is Microsoft’s email program. It is designed for ease of use and compatibility with other Microsoft Office software. The user can keep track of contacts with complete information on their name, address, business, phone, etc. That information can also be repurposed for use in other applications. In many ways business software makes offices more productive by eliminating the need to retype information.

Presentations are an important part of business and the days of flip charts and carbon copies are long gone. Today’s business user has PowerPoint 2007 to create impressive presentations. Those presentations can easily utilize information from Excel and Word. The presentation slides can include animation, music and video. The slides themselves can transition in and out with eye-catching graphics.

Publisher 2007 allows even a small business to have modest design capabilities. Publisher can be used to create newsletters, flyers, business cards, invitations, labels and many other design needs. It contains a basic editing feature that allows users to crop images, rotate them, adjust color and other functions once only available with expensive design software.

Access 2007 is a very powerful software program that is designed for database manipulation. Users can run queries to find out important statistics about the database. Like other Microsoft programs, Access is very compatible with Word, Excel and other applications. The data can be shared easily and used in various documents and presentations.

Typically PC computers have been used for office applications while Mac computers have been used for design applications. That trend is changing as more and more software is being developed for use on both systems. For example Apple computers have a full array of business software to perform everything from word processing to accounting.