Calling Microsoft software malware is so over the top that it turns off normal users and is only appreciated by people who are already committed to free software.
Excel, like the entirety of the titles in the Office Suite, was originally developed on the Mac - where it was hardly used since the Mac wasn't targeted to business at the time. Excel was ported to Windows 2.0, but like the Mac, hardly any business was using that. In the 1980's business ran on Lotus 123, not Excel.
All that changed after the release of Windows 3.0, but by that time Microsoft was already "The Dominator" as you put it. Excel 3.0 was released for Windows, Lotus took way too long to come up with a Windows release and Excel, with its GUI, had come to dominate the market. The rest is history, as they say.
Later we found out that while Microsoft was saying one thing in industry press releases and conferences, they were preparing Windows 3.0. I've never trusted that company since, and they've never failed to meet my low expectations of them.
Thing is, I remember a very different Microsoft. They used to be a great company. Then they made a deal with the devil in the 1987 timeframe and they've been evil ever since.
Lotus had its own proprietary menu structure generally invoked with slash. ALL programs did when Lotus was introduced. Its partisans made it hard for Lotus to abandon it, but its failure to shift into the new reality meant the oodles of new people flocking to computing as Windows exploded went to Excel by default, because 1-2-3 was impenetrable.
Word vs. WordPerfect played out in much the same way.
In both cases the MSFT offering was, in many ways, superior, but a key piece of it was the legacy player's refusal to adjust to the common menus Windows users expected.
"208.3. Microsoft's unresponsiveness and its actions to delay the Windows 95 license negotiations with IBM followed soon after IBM announced that it was seeking to acquire Lotus Development Corp., a direct competitor of Microsoft in messaging and office suite software, among other products.
IBM announced on June 5, 1995 a hostile takeover attempt of Lotus. On June 11, IBM and Lotus reached an agreement for IBM to acquire Lotus. IBM completed the acquisition on approximately July 5, 1995. Norris, 6/7/99am, at 35:9 - 36:12. Among other products, Lotus offered Lotus Notes, an e-mail product, and Lotus SmartSuite, an office productivity suite, that competed with Microsoft's software. Norris, 6/7/99am, at 35:21 - 36:5."
"Microsoft repeatedly penalized IBM for competing against Microsoft
Microsoft withheld a Windows 95 license from IBM until 15 minutes before the product's launch because of IBM's preloading of competing products Microsoft conditioned access to critical marketing support, and other terms and conditions for Windows provided to other OEMs, on IBM's not preloading competing products with the PCs it shipped Microsoft sought to condition substantial MDA price reductions on IBM's ceasing to support competing products
Search for "quicktime" for more joy.
That they did it is clear. Whether they did it for simple profit (Office/Works) or to further enhance the moat around Windows (Java, QuickTime). They did it using Windows as both carrot and stick, to gain compliance. Because OEMs had no other choice.
Excel is genuinely excellent. I was as big a MSFT-hater in the 90s as you are likely to be able to find, but credit where credit is due: Excel provides a level of data analysis power to a lay user that is just not available elsewhere.
Sure, tech people (cough HN readers cough) often want to trot out arguments about how "well, that sort of stuff just shouldn't be done in Excel! They should learn to use R or SQL or some other $MoreCorrectTool". That's poppycock. Excel is already on the analyst's desk. It's immensely powerful while ALSO being very accessible. Nothing else comes close.
Excel was just better by miles.
I think building a good spreadsheet program that is both accessible and powerful is very difficult. Excel might be the most non-trivially used "programming language" in the world.
It is undeniable that Excel has provided massive value for end users and been massively empowering for them.
Whether or not Microsoft software is malware is a different question that if Microsoft is a good or bad company.
Well...
Joke aside, its not like I came up with this definition.
> Malware is software that is installed on a computer without the user's consent and that performs malicious actions.
https://www.mcafee.com/en-us/antivirus/malware.html#:~:text=....
Do you manually inspect every CPU clock cycle spent, or every data connection or packet sent by every piece of SW running on your system, to make sure it was all done with your consent?
Excel rode on the popularity of VisiCalc and Lotus 123 for years.
https://thehistoryofcomputing.net/visicalc-excel-and-the-ris...
“They released an early spreadsheet tool called Multiple [sic] in 1982. But Lotus 1-2-3 was the first killer application for the PC.”