The History of Microsoft Word | WheelHouse IT

Microsoft Word is one of the most popular software titles in the world. It wasn’t always so. Despite competing with a myriad of separate word processors over literal decades, Word has sustained and is now more powerful than ever. Today, we’ll take you through the history of Microsoft Word—the world’s most recognizable word processor.

Initial Development

The very first edition of Microsoft Word was created by Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie for Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system. Also running on the Xenix OS, the first version of Word was commissioned by Bill Gates and Paul Allen after their experience with Xerox Bravo, a word processing application Simonyi and Brodie had previously developed. According to Britannica, Word was the first word processor to make extensive use of the computer mouse and to display formatting styles—such as bold, italic, and underline—directly on screen.

While initially unpopular, Microsoft’s move into a dedicated graphical user interface (GUI) with 1985’s Microsoft Windows changed Word’s fortunes. The first GUI-enabled Word platform was released in 1990. The software quickly made up ground on Corel’s WordPerfect, which was the most popular word processor for much of the late 1980s. Since Corel failed to produce a Windows-compatible version of WordPerfect, Word was able to corner that market quickly. The strategy of designing software for multiple platforms led to more people using Word than any other word processing program and has served the company well for decades.

Microsoft Office

As Microsoft Word’s popularity grew, Microsoft realized that companies were now looking to buy software suites rather than individual titles. In 1990 they bundled Word 1.1 with Microsoft Excel 2.0 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2.0, creating what would become the foundation of Microsoft Office—the most comprehensive enterprise productivity suite on the market for both PC and Mac at the time.

One of its main early competitors was Microsoft Works, also a productivity suite marketed to individuals. Works ran for 17 years but was finally discontinued in 2007 when Microsoft started offering the Office suite at a lower price point.

With Microsoft Office adding email capabilities in July of 1991, it quickly became the go-to productivity suite for the business professional. Then came Windows 3.1, the industry-leading OS of its era. By outpacing competitors with their operating system, cache of available applications, and reasonable price point, Microsoft entrenched themselves as one of the main business software companies in the world.

Word Innovation

As Microsoft continued to develop and release industry-leading software, Microsoft Word started to gain features. When Windows 95 launched, so did Word 95—the first Word product to be developed exclusively for Windows, with no Macintosh counterpart.

Word 97, introduced late in 1996, added Clippit (known as Clippy). Since there were so many options that a user could select within their Office suite, Clippy helped people navigate the new toolbars and user interface. Word was also part of the first Office suite that included product activation, which would become the standard way to license software for much of the next two decades.

Word 2000 added HTML tools and the very first internet-based collaboration features. Microsoft was quick to release major patches to address any compatibility concerns—a commitment to continuous improvement that continues today. Subsequent versions of the software have made collaboration a major point of emphasis.

Word in the Cloud

New versions of Word appeared on roughly a three-year cycle, each adding new features and improved user controls. In 2011, Microsoft decided to start providing access to their Office products—including Word—as a service. The platform, known as Office 365, was one of the very first major-name applications to embrace the Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud model that nearly every platform offers today.

Originally aimed at only corporate users, Office 365 has since been rebranded to Microsoft 365, with specific packages created to fit the needs of home users, small businesses, and large enterprises alike. Today, the cloud-based product is used by over a billion people worldwide, and Microsoft is one of the largest and most important software companies in the world. Word remains, by far, the most widely used word processor on the market today.

If your business would like to learn more about the latest version of Word and the enhanced collaboration tools provided in the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, WheelHouse IT’s team of Microsoft-certified specialists can help you get the most out of every tool in the suite.

WheelHouse IT Helps Your Business Get More From Microsoft 365

Microsoft Word has come a long way from its MS-DOS roots—and so has the way businesses rely on it. Today’s Microsoft 365 suite is a full cloud-powered platform for communication, collaboration, and security. Making sure your organization is properly set up, licensed, and supported takes more than just clicking “install.” That’s where a managed IT services partner makes all the difference.

WheelHouse IT is a certified Microsoft Solutions Partner serving businesses across South Florida, New York, and Los Angeles. Whether you’re migrating to Microsoft 365 for the first time or optimizing an existing deployment, our team handles the complexity so your employees can focus on the work that matters.