Tuesday, March 11, 2014

FEATURES OF SOFTWARE

1. Ease of use
The software systems and applications are becoming more and more easy to use. In fact,
software developers and system analysts go to great lengths to ensure that the products they
develop are user-friendlier than their competitor’s products.
2. Graphical user interface (GUI)
GUI or graphical user interface has now become the default standard for most of the
software applications. Gone are the days of the crude character based interfaces of UNIX and
DOS application. Today’s software applications and products provide the users with perceptive,
graphical and easy-to-use interfaces. Now the users do not have to remember the cryptic system
commands or shortcut keys that were a must in the character based era. Now almost any task can
be accomplished by a mouse click.
3. Multi-platform capability
Today’s software applications are not developed for just one platform. Most of the
software applications supports multiple platforms-both hardware and software platforms. There
are software applications that support hardware platforms ranging from mainframes to PCs and
different software platforms like MVS, Solaris, AIX, UNIX, Windows and so on. For example
IBM’s DB2 Universal database is available for a variety or hardware and software platforms.
 Another important feature of today’s software application is that they support multiple languages
and multiple currencies. Many vendors are providing their applications in many languages like
English, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese and so on.
4. Compatibility with other software
Now the competition for each market segment in the software marketplace is rather
fierce. We have many software vendors battling for the market share in the same segment. For
example, Microsoft Word 2000 supports all previous versions of Work like Word 97, Word 6,
Word and so on. The two features –compatibility with earlier versions and compatibility with
other products make it easier for the users, as they can choose the application they want and still
use the old files they have created using other applications or using older versions of the same
application.
5. Mail enabling
Mail enabled applications are designed to take advantage of on e-mail. These are the
familiar word processors, spreadsheets, and other individual desktop applications that have email
features built to them. There is another class of message-centered programs that are built
specifically around e-mail functions.
6. Web enabling
With the ever-increasing popularity of internet and the amount of information that is
available on the net, most software applications are now web-enabled. Web enabling helps the
user in many different ways. Its use starts while the user is installing the application. During
installation, most of the applications will automatically connect to the Internet and to the
vendor’s web site and will register their products (earlier one had to fill in a paper form and mail
or fax it to the vendor).

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