The term ‘software‘ refers to the set of electronic program instructions or data a computer processor reads in order to perform a task or operation. In contrast, the term ‘hardware‘ refers to the physical components that you can see and touch, such as the computer hard drive, mouse, and keyboard.
Software can be categorized according to what it is designed to accomplish. There are two main types of software: systems software and application software.
Systems Software
Systems software includes the programs that are dedicated to managing the computer itself, such as the operating system, file management utilities, and disk operating system (or DOS). The operating system manages the computer hardware resources in addition to applications and data. Without systems software installed in our computers we would have to type the instructions for everything we wanted the computer to do!
Applications Software
Application software, or simply applications, are often called productivity programs or end-user programs because they enable the user to complete tasks, such as creating documents, spreadsheets, databases and publications, doing online research, sending email, designing graphics, running businesses, and even playing games! Application software is specific to the task it is designed for and can be as simple as a calculator application or as complex as a word processing application. When you begin creating a document, the word processing software has already set the margins, font style and size, and the line spacing for you. But you can change these settings, and you have many more formatting options available. For example, the word processor application makes it easy to add color, headings, and pictures or delete, copy, move, and change the document’s appearance to suit your needs.
Microsoft Word is a popular word-processing application that is included in the software suite of applications called Microsoft Office. A software suite is a group of software applications with related functionality. For example, office software suites might include word processing, spreadsheet, database, presentation, and email applications. Graphics suites such as Adobe Creative Suite include applications for creating and editing images, while Sony Audio Master Suite is used for audio production.
A Web browser, or simply browser, is an application specifically designed to locate, retrieve, and display content found on the Internet. By clicking a hyperlink or by typing the URL of a website, the user is able to view Web sites consisting of one or more Web pages. Browsers such as Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari are just a few of the many available to choose from.
Basic Types of Application Softwares and How They Differ
One way to do this is by grouping all application software into three types.
Utility software
This could include firewall utilities and antivirus applications, as well as other utilities like zipping or unzipping utilities or disk defragmenting tools, or anything else that an end user can operate as a utility.
Integrated software
Software that does more than one thing, or includes different bundled applications. Here’s where your traditional Microsoft Office suite belongs. Another example is a set of database applications bundled together to do different things to data assets.
Specific application software
This would be a single application developed for one defined purpose that is not a utility. Here’s where you can separate all of those standalone applications into different categories like games, word processors, analytical engines, newsfeeds etc.
Even social media platforms have come to resemble applications, especially on our mobile phone devices, where individual applications are given the nickname “apps.”
So while the term “application software” can be used broadly, it’s an important term in describing the rise of sophisticated computing environments from early mainframes and Von Neumann models.
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