REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 18, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that Microsoft® Office 97 is the fastest-selling business application in PC history. In less than a year, Office 97 has sold more than 20 million licenses at an average rate of 60,000 per day. This unprecedented level of demand surpasses that of any business productivity application product on the market, with licenses selling at twice the rate of any previous version of Office.
“With record-level sales, Office 97 has reached a new milestone in PC history,” said Steve Ballmer, executive vice president of sales and support at Microsoft. “Corporate customers of all sizes and industries are driving the high demand for Office 97. We credit this success to the great feedback we’ve received from our customers.”
Leading corporations now rapidly deploying Office 97 represent a broad cross-section of industries, including technology, financial organizations, government, health-care and manufacturing firms. Companies that have recently committed to Office 97 are World Bank, Chrysler Corp., Dell Computer Corp., St. John Medical Center, NationsBanc Montgomery Securities Inc. and many others.
32-Bit Foundation, Web Functionality and Collaboration Cited as Reasons to Move
For many corporations in the process of deployment, Office 97 completes their standardization on a 32-bit Windows® operating system-based desktop.
Other corporations have cited new features in Office 97 that allow for ad hoc sharing of information as well as the rich communication capabilities of the Outlook
™
messaging and collaborating client as key reasons to upgrade.
“We standardized on Office 97 and Outlook to improve our communication and increase efficiency among departments and to our customers,” said Cliff Fahey, manager of desktop engineering, Dell Computer Corp. Dell is upgrading from Office 4.2 to Office 97 and replacing its existing e-mail system with Outlook. Dell will complete 100 percent deployment on 12,000 desktops in the coming months.
As end users begin to create content for corporate intranets, they can use integrated Web functionality that is part of Office 97 – the set of tools they already know how to use. Office 97 includes in-document hyperlinks, a Web Wizard to create HTML Web pages using Word 97, and a Save As HTML command throughout the suite that enables users to automatically convert Office 97 documents to a format viewable on the World Wide Web.
For more information on other companies that have chosen Office 97, visit the Microsoft corporate desktop evaluation Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/office/org/ .
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.
Microsoft, Windows and Outlook are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages.
