REDMOND, Wash., Nov. 24, 1997 — Microsoft Corp. today announced that the Microsoft® Office 97 Service Release has successfully removed major migration hurdles. With the availability of the Service Release in August, Microsoft removed backward-compatibility barriers that caused some organizations to temporarily stall deployment. Leading corporations such as Compaq Computer Corp., Home Shopping Network, Shell Services, United Video Satellite Group Inc. and others are committed to widespread deployment and installation of Office 97 across their organizations.
“In a single day, we deployed Office 97 across the globe, including in Canada, Japan, Germany, Latin America, and to 20,000 desktops in the U.S.,” said John Holmes, manager of global desktop and groupware services at Compaq. “Office 97 has been extremely stable for us, although we appreciate that Microsoft listened to customers and responded so quickly with the Service Release.”
Large corporations may use multiple versions of Office during the deployment phase depending on the time it takes to upgrade large numbers of desktops and end users. The Office 97 Service Release is especially important to these organizations, since it includes the updated Word 97 binary file converter that simplifies the sharing of documents across versions of Word.
“We waited to deploy Office 97 at Microsoft’s recommendation because some of our employees were experiencing difficulty saving Word files to older versions,” said Lloyd Thiesfeld, architect for desktop services at Shell Services, a division of Shell Oil. “The Service Release addressed our concerns and has allowed us to continue our deployment on 10,000 desktops.”
“We appreciate our customers providing feedback on their migration challenges,” said Jon Reingold, vice president of desktop applications marketing at Microsoft. “We listened, and with this Service Release our customers can and are moving forward.”
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 is either a registered trademark or trademark 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.
