Office 2016

The History Of

In 1988 Bill Gates announced Microsoft Office at COMDEX in Las Vegas, bringing together Word, Excel and PowerPoint as a bundle for the first time.

The Hubble Space Telescope launches into low earth orbit in April 1990

Mail is added to the Office suite in July 1991

January 1994 sees the launch of Office 4.0 with Word 6.0, Excel 4.0 and PowerPoint 3.0

Office 4.2.1 becomes the first version of the suite for Mac OS

A new version of Office was released in 1995 to coincide with the launch of Windows 95 and was followed by Office 97, which required a whopping 44 floppy disks for installation. It was replaced by version 8.5, powered by the new Word 98, with Office 2000 arriving in July 1999.

Excel 7 in Office 95 contains a hidden Doom–like game called Hall of Tortured Souls as an Easter Egg crediting the application's writers

Clippit, also known as "Clippy", the paperclip virtual assistant, appears for the first time in Office 97

Office 97 is classified "Y2K safe" as the world panics about the "millennium bug"

Friends Season 3 attracts 29.4m viewers, the show's Matthew Perry and Jennifer Anniston feature in a Windows 95 video guide

Microsoft Office XP, version 10 of the Office suite, was launched in May 2001 and introduced a range of new features including speech and handwriting recognition. It was replaced by Office 2003 in November 2003.

Office Assistant "Clippit" is disabled by default in Office XP

Office 2003 sees the introduction of XP style icons

OneNote, the digital note taking application, debuts in Office 2003

In April 2003, the Human Genome Project uncovers the complete genetic blueprint for human beings

Microsoft Office 2007 was launched in January 2007 alongside Windows Vista and featured the "Fluent User Interface". It was later succeeded by Office 2010, the first version of the suite to offer 32 and 64-bit support. Office 2010 also delivered the first "Web App" versions of Office software, enabling business to be done anywhere.

SmartArt is introduced in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook in Office 2007

Office 2007 includes a new GUI called the Fluent User Interface, which uses ribbons and an Office start menu instead of menu and toolbars

Barack Obama is elected the 44th President of the United States in November 2008

Office jumps from version 12 to 14 with Office 2010 due to the unlucky connotations of the number 13

In June 2011, Office 365 brought together Microsoft's Office suite and online services into "an always-up-to-date cloud service". The new service delivered Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online together in the cloud.

In December 2011, Microsoft announces that the Office 365 platform will enable businesses to be compliant with ISO/IEC 27001 security standards

Users of Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite begin migrating their existing services to Office 365

Microsoft acquires Yammer, the private social network, and begins work integrating it into Office 365

Office 365 provides Exchange email, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and Office Web apps

Celebrations are held on what would have been Alan Turing's 100th Birthday, seen by many as the founding father of Computer Science (and some say of Excel)

Within Office 365, Office 2013 arrived in February 2013. New features included OneDrive for Business, Skype for Business, iPad versions of the Office apps and Yammer integration.

Efficiency and productivity are enhanced in Office 365 with the addition of Office Mix, Office Lens and Power Map for Excel

Office for iOS launches and achieves over 80 million downloads in less than a year

In November 2014, Microsoft announces that it is combining features users know and love from Lync and Skype to create Skype for Business

Since its launch, over 200 new features are added to Office 365

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's first child, Prince George, is born in July 2013

Office 2016 is Microsoft's latest and best version of the Office suite, available via Office 365. Built for teamwork, Office 2016 makes your businesses more productive, more secure and enables you and your team to work in a way that works for you across devices, locations and people. Put simply, Office 2016 takes the work out of working together.

Produce professional documents fast with intelligent suggestions, information, and insights at just the right time.

Store and share with confidence. With 1 TB of OneDrive for Business storage, you have the built-in, secured way to store and share all your stuff.

Access your documents and work whenever and wherever—with full fidelity viewing and editing—from your PC or Mac to your Windows, Apple®, and Android™ phones and tablets.

Work together like never before in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Real-time typing in Word lets you see others' edits as they happen.

Work like you're all in one room, even when you're not. Use Skype for Business for HD video conferencing , coauthoring, desktop sharing, presentations, and IM to run your meetings from anywhere.

Find out more about Office 365 and the benefits to your business with Office 2016.