How many applications are available to PC users?

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Request for Question Clarification by duncan2-ga on 22 Oct 2002 15:16 PDT

Hi Matt,
This is a really broad question and one that may be difficult to
answer (and even harder to prove).  New applications are written and
brought to market all the time, so an exact number is not going to be
possible.

To help clarify your goals for this question, can you be more specific
as to what you're looking for?  Is it only programs that run on
Windows PC's, or are Macintosh programs also to be included?  (For
that matter, would you include applications available Intel PC's that
run BeOS or Linux instead of Windows?)

Would you be looking for software that was commercially developed and
sold, or software that was written by hobbyists and released as
freeware (for example).

You should probably try to specify your timeframe too.  Many older DOS
programs from the 90's still run in the Windows environment.  Are
those to be included too?  If so the answer is probably "many
thousands of programs".

The more specific you can be with your question, the more likely it is
that a researcher will be able to answer it.

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Clarification of Question by matt2-ga on 22 Oct 2002 16:20 PDT

Thanks for the feedback.  Hope this clarifies -- i know that it is
still broad.  LMK if you need more input.

Today, how many commercially available applications would I, a
consumer, have to chose from to run on my personal computer from home?

The number of commerically available products are indefinate and
unlimited. There is new software coming out everyday and even if you
were to go to a store and count them, you could go to another store
and get a totally different number and more variety of software.
That's like going to a different grocery store and asking how many
products they have available; you are going to get a different number
and a variety of different products. So no one could give you an exact
answer.