What did the software industry look like before cloud, enterprise platforms, and AI?

In this article, authored by Ken Wasch, the first CODiE Awards in 1986 offer a revealing look at an industry in its formative years—defined by learning, creativity, and experimentation.

This article is one installment in a five-part series commemorating the 40th anniversary of the CODiE Awards, reflecting on the milestones that shaped modern software.

We sometimes forget that while the advent of the Apple IIe in 1983 was a big deal and the world was fascinated by personal computers, the industry itself was incredibly small. In fact, in 1985, the three largest software companies — Lotus Development Corporation, Ashton-Tate, and Microsoft — each generated less than US$300 million in annual revenue. Lotus and Ashton-Tate were eventually acquired, and their original brands and products have largely disappeared. Microsoft, by contrast, has grown astronomically: in its most recent fiscal year (2025), the company generated about US$281.7 billion in revenue — roughly 1,400 times what it generated in 1986 (~US$197 million).

In those early days, the CODiE Awards reflected the products that defined personal computing for ordinary people. The first few years were dominated by education, games, creativity tools, and consumer applications. Companies like Brøderbund Software, Spinnaker, Electronic Arts, and Scholastic were frequent winners. Even then, the field was far too broad and too diverse to bring together into a single awards program—but the CODiEs attempted exactly that.

The 1986 CODiEs: A Snapshot of an Industry About to Explode

The very first CODiE Awards in 1986 offer a remarkable snapshot of a young industry just beginning to find its voice. The winners’ list reads like a time capsule of companies that would go on to shape—sometimes define—the next 40 years of software innovation.

Microsoft delivered several of the most impressive achievements that year. Windows earned Best Software Product, Best User Interface, and Best Technical Achievement, signaling the dawn of graphical operating environments. Excel won Best Business Product, marking the emergence of productivity software that would become central to personal and corporate computing for decades.

Education and creativity were equally foundational in those early CODiEs. Brøderbund’s iconic Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? won Best Learning Product, becoming a cultural phenomenon and one of the most successful educational games ever created. Electronic Arts took home Best Creativity Product and Best Graphics Program for Deluxe Paint, a tool that influenced early computer artists, Amiga enthusiasts, and game developers worldwide.

One of the most historically important winners was Aldus Corporation, whose groundbreaking PageMaker won Best New Use of a Computer. PageMaker helped launch the desktop-publishing revolution, giving small businesses, schools, and individuals access to page-layout capabilities previously available only on expensive workstations. This single product transformed the Macintosh, and later Windows PCs, into professional publishing tools.

Aldus’s story didn’t end there. In 1994, Adobe acquired Aldus—absorbing PageMaker into what would become the world’s dominant suite of creative tools. Adobe eventually replaced PageMaker with InDesign, but the award-winning 1986 product lives on through Adobe’s modern publishing ecosystem. It stands as one of the earliest examples of how a CODiE-recognized innovation could reshape an entire field.

Looking Back While Moving Forward

The early CODiEs captured the essence of an industry still figuring itself out. They rewarded creativity, play, education, and experimentation—values that sometimes get overshadowed in today’s world of enterprise software, cloud architecture, and AI-driven automation.

Understanding where the industry came from helps clarify what the CODiEs have meant for nearly four decades: not just an awards program, but one of the earliest institutions that recognized ingenuity in a field that was still being invented.

This early snapshot sets the stage for how both the CODiEs and the software industry would continue to evolve in the decades that followed.