> Since when are Word, Excel [...] enterprise software?
Since Word 1.0.
Why do you think it is called Microsoft Office? The 1989 edition of Microsoft Word cost $500, equivalent to over $1,000 today, for a single seat. That's not consumer software.
Microsoft Home didn't exist until 1993, a decade into Office's life, when it had achieved complete enterprise dominance -- thanks largely to its competitors' failure to release Windows version in a timely fashion in the late 1980s & early 1990s -- and Microsoft began pushing into consumer software.
Microsoft didn't use the "Office" branding until 1995. Before that, the computer industry called it "productivity software" instead of "enterprise software". In the 1990s, other software companies (like Borland and IBM) were bundling word processors + spreadsheets + presentations + databases into an "office suite" for a lower package price.
In the 1980s, Microsoft Word was competing with WordStar and WordPerfect and those were all consumer software for personal computers. Consumers could go into an office supply store and buy shrinkwrapped boxes of those software titles. They didn't need a purchase order from corporate accounting to buy an "enterprise volume license". And consumer magazines like PC Magazine and PC World would run articles comparing MS Word to WordPerfect, etc.
Yes, a Fortune 500 corporation today can buy a enterprise volume licenses of MS Office (or Office 365 cloud subscription) but MS Word's roots definitely included the consumer sector. I don't think the example of MS Word fits the author's idea of "enterprise" software.
There was also Microsoft Works, which was Microsoft's first integrated word processor, spreadsheet, and database. That was the low-cost consumer-level package for quite a while. It was often OEM-bundled, in hopes of eventually inducing users to buy into Office proper. Works was sold as late as 2007 before being retired in favor of Office instead.
When people say "Enterprise Software" they are not talking about shrink-wrap single-user office productivity applications like word processors and spreadsheets.
Maybe there should be another term to help clarify for people who don't understand the difference, but the difference really should be obvious from context.
Since Word 1.0.
Why do you think it is called Microsoft Office? The 1989 edition of Microsoft Word cost $500, equivalent to over $1,000 today, for a single seat. That's not consumer software.
Microsoft Home didn't exist until 1993, a decade into Office's life, when it had achieved complete enterprise dominance -- thanks largely to its competitors' failure to release Windows version in a timely fashion in the late 1980s & early 1990s -- and Microsoft began pushing into consumer software.