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A brief history of Microsoft Office

1990 was a pretty amazing year. The Hubble Space Telescope, through the work of a global team of scientists and engineers, was launched. Workers from the UK and France met 40 metres beneath the English Channel, creating the first land bridge between the UK and the continent since the last ice age. And Microsoft Office (The Microsoft Office, as it was called at the time) was officially launched. Over the past 25 years all three have helped shape the world in their own unique ways.

When it first launched, Office 1.0 brought productivity software together that empowered workers across all departments of an organization in a way that was unprecedented. Since then, we’ve seen many versions of Microsoft Office, each iteration building on the features of the last as part of an evolution that has shaped the way people work across the globe.

Do you remember installing Office 97 with 44 floppy disks, getting help from ‘Clippy’ the virtual assistant or marvelling at the radical new ribbon interface that seems like part of the Office furniture today?

Take a brief journey through the history of Microsoft Office, from where it all began way back in 1990 with the most basic of logos and see just how far it’s come as we usher in a new era with Office 2016.

Take a journey through the history of Microsoft Office