Microsoft Software

Microsoft Windows is a range of operating environments for personal computers and servers. The range was first introduced by Microsoft in 1985 to counter Apple's new system; the Apple Macintosh, which used a graphical user interface (GUI). Microsoft Windows eventually came to dominate the world personal computer market with a market share estimated to be around 95% for desktop personal computers. All recent versions of Windows are fully-fledged operating systems. Windows is proprietary closed source software: Microsoft Corporation owns the software's copyright and controls its distribution.

Windows was developed for IBM PC-compatible computers (these were based on Intel x86 architecture), and today, almost all versions of Windows are made for this hardware-platform (although Windows NT was written as a cross-platform system for Intel and MIPS processors, and later appeared on the PowerPC and DEC Alpha architectures). The popularity of Windows made Intel CPUs more popular and vice versa. In fact, the term Wintel became used to describe PC-compatible computers running a version of Windows.

Microsoft Office is a suite of productivity programs created by Microsoft and developed for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh operating systems. As well as the office applications, it includes associated servers and Web-based services. Recent versions of Office are now called the 'Office System' rather than the 'Office Suite' to reflect the fact that they include Servers as well.

Office made its first appearance in the early 90s, and was initially a marketing term for a bundled set of applications that were previously marketed and sold seperately. The main selling point was that buying the bundle was substantially cheaper than buying each of the individual applications on their own. The first version of Office contained Word, Excel and Powerpoint. Additionally, a "Pro" version of Office included Microsoft Access. (Microsoft Outlook did not yet exist at this time). Over the years the Office applications have grown substantially closer together from a technical standpoint, sharing features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and the Microsoft VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) scripting language. In recent years, Microsoft has attempted to position Office as a development platform in its own right, but has had mixed results with this.

Office is considered to be the de facto standard for productivity programs, and has many features not present in other suites. However, the reverse is also true, with other programs having capabilities Office doesn't.

These programs are included in all editions of Microsoft Office 2003, except Microsoft Office Basic Edition 2003. Microsoft Office Basic Edition includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook only.

Microsoft Word is a word processor. It is considered to be the main program of Office. It possesses a dominant market share in the word processor market. Its proprietary DOC format is considered a de facto standard, although its most recent version, Word 11.0/2003, also supports an XML-based format. Word is also available in some editions of Microsoft Works. It is available for the Windows and Macintosh platforms. Its main competitors are OpenOffice.org Writer, StarOffice, Corel WordPerfect and Apple Pages.

Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet program. Like Microsoft Word, it possesses a dominant market share. It was originally a competitor to the dominant Lotus 1-2-3 but it eventually outsold it and became the de facto standard. It is available for the Windows and Macintosh platforms. Its main competitors are OpenOffice.org Calc, StarOffice and Corel Quattro Pro.

Microsoft Outlook, not to be confused with Outlook Express, is a personal information manager and e-mail communication software. The replacement for Microsoft Mail starting in the 1997 version of Office, it includes an e-mail client, calendar, task manager and address book. Its e-mail program's main competitors are Mozilla Thunderbird/Mozilla and Eudora. Its personal information manager's main competitors are Mozilla and Lotus Organizer. It is available for Windows; a version is also included with most Pocket PC handhelds. Its Macintosh equivalent is Microsoft Entourage.

Microsoft PowerPoint is a popular presentation program for Windows and Macintosh. It is used to create slideshows, composed of text, graphics, movies and other objects, which can be displayed on-screen and navigated through by the presenter or printed out on transparencies or slides. Windows Mobile 2005 (Magneto) will have a version of this program. It possesses a dominant market share. Its main competitors are OpenOffice.org Impress, Corel WordPerfect and Apple Keynote.

• Microsoft Access – database manager. For the 2003 version, included in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, and Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003.
• Microsoft InfoPath – application that enables users to design rich XML-based forms. Included in Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003.
• Microsoft Publisher – Desktop publishing software. For the 2003 version, included in Microsoft Office Small Business Edition 2003, Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, and Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003.
• Microsoft FrontPage – web design software (also requires its own server program). For the 2003 version, included in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003, and Microsoft Office Professional Enterprise Edition 2003.
• Microsoft Visio – diagram software.
• Microsoft Office Picture Manager – basic photo management software (similar to a basic version of Google's Picasa or Adobe's Photoshop Elements).
• Microsoft Photo Editor – photo editing/raster graphics software in older Office versions, and again in XP. It was temporarily supplemented by Microsoft PhotoDraw in Office 2000 Premium edition.
• Microsoft Project – project manager.
• Microsoft OneNote – note taking software for use with tablet PCs or regular PCs.
• Microsoft Office Communicator 2005 - [1]
• Developer Tools – (only included with developer editions)