Commercial software
Commercial software is computer software sold for commercial purposes or that serves commercial purposes. Until the emergence of the Internet, oftware represented, until the 2000s, the vast majority of all software used and was referred to as shrinkware because software almost always ships in a shrinkwrapped box.
Historically, one of the most important events that have led to the expansion of the retail software market was the Open Letter to Hobbyists by Bill Gates in 1976.
The most famous examples of commercial software are the products offered on the IBM PC and clones in the 1980s and 90s, including famous programs like Lotus 123, Word Perfect and the various parts that make up Microsoft Office. Microsoft Windows is also shrinkware, but is most often pre-installed on the computer.
The rise of the Internet has dramatically changed the retail software market with users more capable of finding shareware and freeware products as easily as commercial and the amount of software being sold in stores dropping dramatically.
Commercial software is most often proprietary software. But Software packages and services that support commerce are increasingly available as open source software. Examples include Apple Computer, Sun Microsystems, Google, and Microsoft.