n.
Software so bad or useless that it never gets installed.
Example Citation:
"Its marketing plan has changed several times, and one analyst who is a SoftKey fan calls its products "coasterware,'' because if you don't like the actual software you can use the CD-ROMs as drink coasters since they're so cheap."
— Herb Greenberg, "Does SoftKey International Have Some Hard Core Problems?," The San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 1995
Earliest Citation:
"Of course, the emergence of Windows as a widely accepted and widely used operating environment on the PC is certainly not obvious right now. Although sales of Windows have been good, most of it is undoubtedly shelfware."
— Charles Petzold and Winn L. Rosch, "Four-figure video," PC Magazine, May 26, 1987
Notes:
The more common synonym for coasterware is shelfware, which has been around since the mid-1980s.
Related Words:
Category:
New words. 2013.