Microsoft Word/Talk

A side-thought: it'd be nice for someone to develop a discussion on the [Microsoft Mouse]? and its history. Compare its development with that of the one-button Apple mouse. No contest.

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Word and MS' first spreadsheet program MultiPlan both shared a very similar look when they came out, using the same two-line command interface at the bottom of the screen; the 'feel' of the two programs was very similar, implying that Word was first developed by Bill's MultiPlan team. MultiPlan was boosted by Bill Gates who envied Lotus 1-2-3, but was disappointed by MultiPlan's inability to compete. Buoyed by his successes in writing early programs for the Macintosh, I think Bill gritted his teeth and resolved to bring out graphically based versions of Word and Excel/MultiPlan? to leapfrog Lotus. An early sign of this resolve was the introduction of the Microsoft Mouse (which, btw, worked with the text version of Word). Other attempts at mouse products for the PC were unsuccessful. Bill's resolve to make Excel and Word probably motivated the development of Windows.

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Most of Microsoft's products have been bought from other companies. Anyone know the origin of Word and whether this is true for it?

This PDF [1] states that BravoX?, a predecessor to the Star it's Document Editor, was the direct predecessort of MS Word. You do not always need to buy such products as you can simply hire the orginal developers.