Microsoft Office, MS Office, or simply Office, is an office suite and family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. The first version of the Office suite, announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988 at COMDEX, contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint — all three of which remain core products in Office — and over time Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, Object Linking and Embedding 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.
Microsoft Outlook is a personal information manager software system from Microsoft, available as a part of the Microsoft 365 software suites. Primarily popular as an email client for businesses, Outlook also includes functions such as calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, web browsing, and RSS news aggregation.
MSN is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95.
Microsoft OneNote is a note-taking software developed by Microsoft. It is available as part of the Microsoft 365 suite and since 2014 has been free on all platforms outside the suite. OneNote is designed for free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration. It gathers users' notes, drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network.
Outlook on the web is a personal information manager web app from Microsoft. It is a web-based version of Microsoft Outlook, and is included in Exchange Server and Exchange Online
The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of office suites:
Skype for Business is an enterprise software application for instant messaging and videotelephony developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft 365 suite. It is designed for use with the on-premises Skype for Business Server software, and a software as a service version offered as part of 365. It supports text, audio, and video chat, and integrates with Microsoft 365 components such as Exchange and SharePoint.
Microsoft engineering groups are the operating divisions of Microsoft. Starting in April 2002, Microsoft organised itself into seven groups, each an independent financial entity. In September 2005, Microsoft announced a reorganization of its then seven groups into three. In July 2013, Microsoft announced another reorganization into five engineering groups and six corporate affairs groups. A year later, in June 2015, Microsoft reformed into three engineering groups. In September 2016, a new group was created to focus on artificial intelligence and research. On March 29, 2018, a new structure merged all of these into three.
Google Workspace is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet and Chat for communication; Drive for storage; and the Google Docs Editors suite for content creation. An Admin Panel is provided for managing users and services. Depending on edition Google Workspace may also include the digital interactive whiteboard Jamboard and an option to purchase add-ons such as the telephony service Voice.
Microsoft OneDrive is a file-hosting service operated by Microsoft. First released in August 2007, it allows registered users to store, share and sync their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web version of Microsoft 365 / Office. OneDrive offers 5 GB of storage space free of charge, with 100 GB, 1 TB, and 6 TB storage options available either separately or with Microsoft 365 subscriptions.
Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft Mobile for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design language. Unlike Windows Mobile, it was primarily aimed at the consumer market rather than the enterprise market.
Groove Music is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11.
Microsoft Office 2013 is a version of Microsoft Office, a productivity suite for Microsoft Windows. Unlike with Office 2010, no macOS equivalent was released.
Microsoft mobile services are a set of proprietary mobile services created specifically for mobile devices; they are typically offered through mobile applications and mobile browser for Windows Phone platforms, BREW, and Java. Microsoft's mobile services are typically connected with a Microsoft account and often come preinstalled on Microsoft's own mobile operating systems while they are offered via various means for other platforms. Microsoft started to develop for mobile computing platforms with the launch of Windows CE in 1996 and later added Microsoft's Pocket Office suite to their Handheld PC line of PDAs in April 2000. From December 2014 to June 2015, Microsoft made a number of corporate acquisitions, buying several of the top applications listed in Google Play and the App Store including Acompli, Sunrise Calendar, Datazen, Wunderlist, Echo Notification Lockscreen, and MileIQ.
Google Slides is a presentation program and part of the free, web-based Google Docs suite offered by Google. Google Slides is available as a web application, mobile app for: Android, iOS, and as a desktop application on Google's ChromeOS. The app is compatible with Microsoft PowerPoint file formats. The app allows users to create and edit files online while collaborating with other users in real-time. Edits are tracked by a user with a revision history presenting changes. An editor's position is highlighted with an editor-specific color and cursor and a permissions system regulates what users can do. Updates have introduced features using machine learning, including "Explore," offering and "tasks to other users."
Cortana was a virtual assistant developed by Microsoft that used the Bing search engine to perform tasks such as setting reminders and answering questions for users.
Microsoft Office Mix was a service offered by Microsoft as part of their Office suite. Introduced in 2014, Mix was offered as part of an Office 365 subscription, before it was retired on May 1, 2018. The Office Mix website remains active, however upon visiting the site, it presents a message that states that the service is now unavailable.
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Microsoft Office, and enterprise products and services associated with these products such as Exchange Server, SharePoint, and Viva Engage. Microsoft 365 also covers subscription plans encompassing these products, including those that include subscription-based licenses to desktop and mobile software, and hosted email and intranet services.
Google Docs Editors is a web-based productivity office suite offered by Google within its Google Drive service. The suite includes:
Microsoft Copilot is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Microsoft. Based on the GPT-4 series of large language models, it was launched in 2023 as Microsoft's primary replacement for the discontinued Cortana.
