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by John Reynolds
 Application software is a subclass of computer software. It includes the capabilities of a computer directly and exhaustively to a task that the user wishes to perform. The application software is in contrast with the system software, which is involved in assimilating various capabilities of a computer. Typically, this software does not directly apply computer capabilities in the performance of tasks that benefit the user. In this context, the term application refers to both the application software and its implementation. The most familiar examples of application software are spreadsheets, word processors and media players.
Application software sometimes also refers to multiple applications, which are sold together as a package, are sometimes referred to as an application suite. Such software includes Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, and iWork 08. This application software bundle together a word processor, a spreadsheet, and several other discrete applications. The separate applications in a suite usually have a user interface that has some commonality making it easier for the user to learn and use each application. And often they may have some capability to interact with each other in ways beneficial to the user. For example, a spreadsheet might be able to be embedded in a word processor document even though it had been created in the separate spreadsheet application.
Computer Science says that an application is a program, which is projected with the purpose to perform a particular type of work. In this way, an application differs from operating system, a utility and programming language. Thus, application software is capable of controlling text, numbers, graphics or combination of all these elements. There are some application software packages, which offer sufficient computing power by focusing on a single task. There is another type of software, Integrated Software, which is of low power but combines several application.
Three basic components are necessary to make application software more accessible. They are as follows:
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You need to design your software so that greatest number of people can use it. Designing must be very user friendly so that people do not have to use any kind of special adaptive software or hardware to get proper utility.
- Your software is required to have special access features built into the operating system. It means that your software must be compatible with operating system, so that people, who are not able to use it directly, can also have access to it.
- You need to make sure that various aspects, like documentation, training and customer support systems are accessible.
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