| Microsoft Office for Windows made its debut in 1990, one year after the software package was released for the Apple Macintosh. Microsoft Office for Windows 98 and its predecessor, Windows 3.1, were basic software suites that included Microsoft Word for Windows, which served as a word processor. In addition, Microsoft Excel managed and designed spreadsheets and calculations for data analysis, and Microsoft PowerPoint allowed the user to design presentations based on the slide show format. A Pro version of the software bundle was also released that included Microsoft Access from which the user could create databases and worked well with the data from Excel. The Pro version also included Schedule Plus as a companion to Microsoft Exchange.
When Windows ME, Millennium Edition, was released in 2000 as a home version to the Windows 2000 operating system, the office suite was named Microsoft Office 2000. Microsoft Office for Windows ME, or Microsoft Office 2000, was the last version of the Microsoft Office to work with the Windows 95 operating system and the last version that did not require the Windows Product Activation to work. There were significant changes in the way the software bundle was sold with this release. Microsoft Office now came in five different editions.
The Standard Edition contained the basic Microsoft Office products of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, the email client. The next step up was the Small Business Edition which included all of the Standard applications plus Microsoft Publisher and the Small Business Tools. The Professional Edition contained the same Microsoft products as the Standard Edition but added Microsoft Access as well as Microsoft Publisher. The Premium Edition included the same bundle as the Professional Edition but added Microsoft FrontPage for the development of web pages, and Photo Draw. Finally the Developer Edition contained everything thee the Premium Edition had and added the programming development tools of Visual Basic for Applications, VBA, and Access Runtime which allowed developers to write code for the Microsoft Office products.
With the release of the Windows XP operating system, Microsoft released Office XP. This suite followed the same edition structure as the Microsoft Office 2000 Suite however, there were upgrades to the software. This version of Microsoft Office for Windows XP was the last version to support Windows 98, Windows ME, and Windows NT. Microsoft Office XP was followed up with Office 2003 which was the last in the family to support the Windows 2000.
With the release of Microsoft Vista, Microsoft Office 2007 was released. The newest Microsoft Office Suite saw a redesign in the aesthetics of the product. Most notably is the Ribbon, or the top toolbar, which has a more organized and streamlined look. Also, the default font has switched to Calibri rather than the Times New Roman of the past. The newest office bundle also contains many more programs like Visio, SharePoint Designer, InfoPath and others that are more specific to certain tasks. Also, FrontPage is no longer supported as the new web design program is called Expression.
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