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Encyclopedia :
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Microsoft Office |
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Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft 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. 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. Essential Programs on Windows PlatformThese programs are included in all editions of Microsoft Office 2003 except Microsoft Office Basic Edition 2003. Microsoft Office Basic Edition includes Word, Excel, and Outlook only. WordMicrosoft 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 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 and Corel WordPerfect.ExcelMicrosoft 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.OutlookMicrosoft 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 email 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.PowerPointMicrosoft 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 slidess. It possesses a dominant market share. Its main competitors are OpenOffice.org Impress and Corel WordPerfect.Other programs and Web-based services sometimes included:*Binder was a major flop for Microsoft, and is not very widely used. Newer versions of Office often do not include it for this reason. Beginning with the 1997 edition, Microsoft Agent (in 2000 and up) and a similar actor technology (in 97) have been used to provide the Office Assistant, sometimes dubbed "Clippy" or "Clippit", an interactive help tool. Also, beginning with Office 1998, the Macintosh and Windows versions of Office share the same file format. Consequently, any Macintosh with Office 1998 or later can read documents created with Office 1997 or later, and vice-versa. Office 2003 introduced a new, optional file format for the entire suite, built on XML technology. Office X for Mac is also built to handle this file format. EditionsThe Windows version of Microsoft Office 2003 is available in six editions. These are: The Macintosh version, Microsoft Office for Mac 2004, is available in three editions. All include Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. They are identical except for pricing and the inclusion of Virtual PC in the Professional Edition. Pricing as of April 9, 2005 [1] [1] Cross-platform useMicrosoft develops Office primarily for Windows and secondarily for Macintosh. However, most versions of the suite can also be run on Unix-like operating systems through the use of a compatibility layer such as CrossOver Office or WINE. As a general rule of thumb, the older, simpler versions do tend to run considerably better on Wine; however, newer versions have been known to work as well. VersionsMajor Microsoft Windows versions There have been variants of the later versions such as Small Business Edition, Student and Teacher Edition, Professional Edition and Developer Edition with slightly different collections of applications. Apple Macintosh versionsAdd InsA major feature of applications in the Office suite is the ability for users and third party companies to write Office COM add-ins. Component Object Model (COM) add-ins are supplemental programs that extend the capabilities of an application by adding custom commands and specialized features that can accommodate specific tasks. TriviaFor some reason, most versions of Microsoft Office (including 97 and later, and possibly 4.3) use their own widget set, and as a result do not blend in with the native operating system. Whereas Windows uses "Service Packs", Office used to release "Service Releases". However, after Office 2000 Service Release 1, Office now only release Service Packs. Competitors:*OpenOffice.org and StarOffice have secured 14% of the large enterprise market with Microsoft Office leading by a big margin with 95% of the general market. [1] External links |
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