REDMOND, Wash., April 17, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today announced the strongest quarter ever for Microsoft® Office in its history. Eight million Office 97 application licenses have been sold to date – sales have averaged one license of Office 97 per second. Large customers are migrating rapidly to the new version of Office, with over 70 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies deploying or actively evaluating Office 97.
“Office 97 licenses have been selling at three times the rate of any previous version of Office for a comparable time period,”
said Jon Reingold, vice president, desktop applications marketing at Microsoft.
“That tells us Office 97 may be our most successful edition yet.”
Momentum Attributed to Web Functionality, Collaboration, Solutions
Corporations cite tools that allow for the creation of intranet solutions as the primary reason for their migration to Office 97.
“Office 97 made it easier to share information using built-in Web technologies,”
said Frank Calabrese, manager, information technologies, Bose Corp.
“My team was able to harness the power of Office to quickly and easily provide our team with Web-based reporting and interactive training materials.”
Customers also have indicated that communication tools such as the Outlook
™
desktop information manager help users get more organized and complete their work faster. “Because Outlook and Office 97 are so tightly integrated, we chose them to be our standard desktop applications solution,”
said Mike McClure, director of technology strategy and engineering, Southern Company Services Inc.
“Our users can now go to one place on their desktop to create, manage and share information with others.”
Corporations are also expanding on the rich functionality of Office by building line-of-business solutions tailored to meet their specific business challenges.
“VBA and Office 97 enable us to develop more robust and integrated solutions reusing Office functionality,”
said Steve Harshbarger, director, Micro Modeling Associates, Inc.
“We currently have more than 20 active projects integrating Office 97 into Internet, intranet and enterprise solutions.”
Migration Tools and Just-in-Time Training Make Moving Easy
New customizable installation tools and Office 97 built-in training help ensure that customers have a smooth migration. Early feedback from companies using Office 97 indicates a reduction in training and support costs of as much as $135 per desktop. Because customers are increasingly concerned with managing their total cost of ownership, Office 97 was designed to help them minimize their costs and maximize business value.
“The savings we are experiencing in training costs alone more than justify our move to Office 97,”
said Pete Eldridge at Eastman Chemical Co., headquartered in Kingsport, Tenn.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (NASDAQ
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software for personal computers. The company offers a wide range of products and services for business and personal use, each designed with the mission of making it easier and more enjoyable for people to take advantage of the full power of personal computing every day.
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Microsoft Office Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/office/
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