Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite (bundled set of productivity applications), the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, OLE data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand. On July 10, 2012, Softpedia reported that Office is used by over a billion people worldwide.
Microsoft Notepad
Microsoft introduced Multi-Tool Notepad, a mouse-based text editor written by Richard Brodie, with the $195 Microsoft Mouse in May 1983 at the Spring COMDEX computer expo in Atlanta. Also introduced at that COMDEX was Multi-Tool Word, designed by Charles Simonyi to work with the mouse. Most watching Simonyi's demonstration had never heard of a mouse. Microsoft released the Microsoft Mouse in June 1983, and the boxed mouse and Multi-Tool Notepad began shipping in July. Initial sales were modest, as there was little one could do with it except run the three demonstration programs included in the box (a tutorial, practice application and Notepad) or program interfaces to it. The Multi-Tool product line began with expert systems for the Multiplan spreadsheet. On the suggestion of Rowland Hanson, who also convinced Bill Gates to change the name "Interface Manager" to "Windows" before the release of Windows 1.0, the Multi-Tool name was killed by the time Word shipped in November 1983. Hanson's rationale was that "the brand is the hero". People didn't associate the stand-alone name Multi-Tool with Microsoft, and Hanson wanted to make Microsoft the hero, so the Microsoft name replaced "Multi-Tool".