Microsoft Office

Microsoft Office is an office suite of desktop applications, servers and services for Microsoft Windows and OS X operating systems. It was first announced by Bill Gates of Microsoft on 1 August 1988 at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand. On 10 July 2012, Softpedia reported that Office is used by over a billion people worldwide. The current versions are Office 2013 for Windows, released on 11 October 2012; and Office 2011 for OS X, released 26 October 2010. On 24 October 2012, the RTM final code of Office 2013 Professional Plus was released to TechNet and MSDN subscribers for download. On 15 November 2012, the 60-day trial version of Office 2013 Professional Plus was released for download. A touch optimised version of Microsoft Office is available pre-installed on Windows RT tablets. A mobile version of Office, Office Mobile, is available for free on Windows Phone, iOS (with separate versions for both iPhones and iPads), and Android. A web-based version of Office called Office Online, (formerly Office Web Apps) is also available. Microsoft has stated that it plans to create a version of Office for Android tablets (“and other popular platforms”) as well. On January 21, 2015, Microsoft announced that Microsoft Office 2016 will be released in the second half of 2015.