{"id":147,"date":"2015-06-09T21:12:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T01:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/?p=147"},"modified":"2015-07-02T00:43:08","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T04:43:08","slug":"of-course-microsoft-office-is-available-for-the-mac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/09\/of-course-microsoft-office-is-available-for-the-mac\/","title":{"rendered":"Which came first, Office for Mac, or Office for Windows? The answer may surprise you!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a Mac consultant, I’ve met lots of\u00a0Windows users who tell me they’d love to\u00a0switch to Mac, but\u00a0can’t because they save all their documents in Word and Excel.<\/p>\n

Even some\u00a0who\u00a0do<\/em> know about Office for Mac think\u00a0it was originally a Windows-only product that was eventually\u00a0made available in a stripped-down Mac version.<\/p>\n

The truth may surprise you: Office was a Mac-first product.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not just the Office bundle, but each\u00a0of the\u00a0“big three” Office apps\u2014Word, Excel, and PowerPoint\u2014were released on the Mac before Windows. Mac users were using\u00a0Word four years before the Windows version shipped ((The first version wasn’t for Mac or Windows, but for MS-DOS, released in 1983.))!<\/p>\n

Office App Release Dates (in chronological order, rounded to the nearest whole month) ((An earlier version of this post had the wrong dates for PowerPoint and Word)):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
App<\/b><\/td>\nMac<\/b><\/td>\nWindows<\/b><\/td>\nMac headstart<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PowerPoint<\/td>\nApr 20, 1987<\/td>\nMay 22, 1990<\/td>\n3 years, 1 month<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Excel<\/td>\nSep 30, 1985<\/td>\nNov 19, 1987<\/td>\n2 years, 2\u00a0months<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Word<\/td>\nJan\u00a018, 1985 ((I was unable to find any source citing the official release date of Word for Mac. The date I used, January 18 1985, was chosen because that is the date that appears in the “About\u2026” box as seen on this page<\/a>.))<\/td>\nJan 8, 1990<\/td>\n5 years<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Office suite<\/td>\nJun 19, 1989<\/td>\nOct\u00a01, 1990<\/td>\n1 year, 3 months<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Outlook<\/td>\n1997<\/td>\n1997<\/td>\n(tie)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Not only was Office a Mac-first product, but Microsoft made a point of\u00a0introducing new features on the Mac version. For proof look no further than this\u00a0email to\u00a0Bill Gates from then Microsoft exec Ben Walkman:<\/p>\n

Because Mac Office is so much less critical to our business than Windows, we have the flexibility to test out new things in the product and in its marketing before we try them on Windows,<\/strong>\" Waldman said, adding, \"I've personally also found the Mac market interesting because I've seen so many trends appear there first, and eventually become important on Windows.<\/tt><\/p>\n

(Emphasis mine. The email was made public as part of the discovery process in a class action lawsuit ((Joe Comes, Riley Paint, Inc., et. al. v Microsoft Corp., Iowa District Court for Polk County, Case No. CL 82311)).)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a Mac consultant, I’ve met lots of\u00a0Windows users who tell me they’d love to\u00a0switch to Mac, but\u00a0can’t because they save all their documents in Word and Excel. Even some\u00a0who\u00a0do know about Office for Mac think\u00a0it was originally a Windows-only … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2JgYQ-2n","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":177,"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147\/revisions\/177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.yourmacexpert.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}