A proprietary commercial office suite, Microsoft Office consists of desktop applications, services and servers that are closely connected and meant to work on the Mac OS X and Windows operating systems. This suite was introduced to the market by Microsoft all the way back in 1989. The initial version of Microsoft Office contained Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. Since 1989, Microsoft Office applications have gotten closer due to shared aspects like OLE data integration, a spell checker and common scripting language. Office is also being marketed as a development platform in regards to line-of-business software. The newest version of Office for the PC is Office 2010 for Windows, while the newest version of Office for the Mac is Office 2011.

History

Microsoft Windows Versions

The version history for Office is very extensive for the Windows operating system, while being quite short for the Mac OS X operating system. For Windows, the first version of Office emerged in October of 1990 and was updated two times with versions 1.5 and 1.6. Office 3.0 for Windows came out in August of 1992, and in 1993, Office Professional came out. The following year, Office 4.0 came out, and this was updated two times as Office 4.2 for Windows NT and Office 4.3. In August of 1995, Microsoft released Office 95, and in 1997, the company came out with Office 1997. Office 2000 came out in 1999 while Office XP came out in 2001.

When Office 2003 came out, it featured a brand-new logo along with two, brand-new applications that were OneNote and Microsoft InfoPath. When Office 2007 emerged, it, too, contained more brand-new features like Fluent User Interface and Office Open XML. Office 2010 is the current version of Microsoft Office, and its regular features are brand-new collaboration tools and a backstage file menu. The next version of Office is Office 2012, and it is expected to feature significant changes in Microsoft Outlook.

Macintosh versions

The very first version for Mac was released all the way back in 1989, and 1991 saw Office 1.5, while 1992 saw Office 3.0. In 1994, Office 4.2 came out, and after a four year break, 1998 saw the release of Office 98, the Macintosh Edition. To start off the new millennium, Microsoft came out with Office 2001 in 2000, and 2001 saw the emergence of Office v. X. 2004 and 2008 saw the releases of Office 2004 and 2008, respectively, while the current version of Office for the Mac is Office 2011.

Components

Desktop Applications

Word

One of the main applications of the Office suite is Microsoft Word, which is a word processor. It was regarded as the major program in the suite. Word is released for both Windows as well as Mac systems. Whereas Word for Windows features greater customizability and document management, Word for the Mac features a user interface that is coming closer to the Office for Windows version.

Excel

Excel is best thought of as a spreadsheet program. A spreadsheet program simply replicates a paper-based accounting worksheet. This program is for both Windows as well as the Mac. Excel allows users to utilize charts, histograms and basic graphs for accounting purposes. Visual Basic for Applications allows users to perform more sophisticated graphing on Excel as opposed to other kinds of spreadsheets, but while Office for Windows has always had this feature, Microsoft removed it for the 2008 version before restoring it in the 2011 version of Excel.

Outlook/Entourage

Outlook is an e-mail communication system as well as a manager of one’s personal information. Some of its most prominent features include a task manager, a calendar, an e-mail client and an address book. While Outlook has been a mainstay on Office for Windows, it has been used irregularly for the Mac. In 2001, the company released a different version of the Outlook software that was called Entourage. However, in 2011, Microsoft reverted back to Outlook for the Office 2011 release for Mac.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint(PDF) is known as a program for all sorts of presentations. It is available for both the Office versions of Windows and Mac. PowerPoint is used for all sorts of purposes on a computer. For example, it can be utilized to make slideshows, movies, graphics and texts. These can then be shown on a screen and walked through by the person making the presentation.

Other Desktop Applications

The Windows version of Office comes with these following applications, while the Mac Office version does not. These applications all run on the desktop computer itself. They are OneNote, InfoPath, Access, Project, Publisher, Visio, SharePoint Workspace, Picture Manager and InterConnect. Other applications like Lync and SharePoint Designer are no longer sold as part of Office.

Server Applications

Office comes with many different server applications, too. Some of these are SharePoint Server, Lync Server and Forms Server, which allows a person to access InfoPath forms and fill them out by using any web browser. Other server applications include Groove Server, Project Server, PerformancePoint Server and Project Portfolio Server. Project Portfolio Server allows a person to make a portfolio project that is centrally hosted.

Web Services

Office in both Windows and Mac systems features a host of web services. Some are services like Web Apps, Live, and Meeting. Live is composed of both Workspace and Small Business while Meeting is a service for web conferencing. Other web services are Office’s own website along with Office 365 and Microsoft Update.

Common Features

Many versions of Office employ their very own widget set that fails to precisely match the original operating system. For instance, in Office XP and 2003, the regular menus were exchanged with a menu format that was shadowed. The interface that users utilize often carries over into future versions of Windows programs. Another common feature of Office is can even get access to external data through connection-specifications that were saved in .odc files. Office utilizes Service Packs to perform any updates to its software.

File Formats and Metadata

Proprietary file formats were in use before Office 2007. The effect this rule had on any user was that he or she had to adopt the exact same software and its platform. Beginning with Office 2007, the file format that the company has provided users is a type of Office Open XML. Microsoft also gives users the chance to take away any metadata from their Office documents. This was done to guard against any confidential data being released because of the chance of leaks in metadata.

Extensibility

A big feature of this suite is the option for a user to write plug-ins or add-ins to extend the abilities of any application. This feature extends to third parties, too. This is done by way of including special features and commands that are customizable. However, these plug-ins or add-ins that are supported differ based on the specific Office version. For instance, after Office 2000, the plug-ins accepted were COM plug-ins, and after Office 2003, managed code plug-ins were accepted.

Supported Operating Systems

Both Windows as well as Mac Office versions are provided support by Microsoft. After Office 4.2 for Mac, both Windows and Mac shared the exact same type of file format. In example, any Mac running Office 4.2 or later is able to read documents made with Windows’ Office 4.2, and the reverse is true, too. The more popular aspects of Office are supported by Office Mobile. It is available to users for Windows Mobile, and there are also plans being made to make it available for the Symbian OS.

Support Lifecycle

A new support lifecycle was launched by Microsoft as early as 1989. Today, Office versions that were released earlier than Office XP do not have the company’s support anymore. Presently, the policy from Microsoft is that mainstream support from the company for any given version of Office will stop five years after the version’s initial release. Sometimes, support can also end just two years after the subsequent release of a new version. Extended support for an Office version will end five years after mainstream support is over.