Steve Ballmer

Because once you run through a lot of the demo apps and the stuff that Apple built, you're like, okay, what else is here? It's kind of crickets.

And so I'm not sure this has ever been publicly disclosed before, but Apple spent just as much marketing Excel as Microsoft did. They matched Microsoft's marketing spend with their own campaign for it and split the bill.

And so I'm not sure this has ever been publicly disclosed before, but Apple spent just as much marketing Excel as Microsoft did. They matched Microsoft's marketing spend with their own campaign for it and split the bill.

So you've got a couple of concurrent things going on in applications land. You've got Excel coming out for Mac to take advantage of the GUI. Meanwhile, and this strategy is just all over the place. I think that's an interesting thing to underscore about Microsoft in this era. They're trying a ton of stuff because they're paranoid. They don't want to miss the next wave.

So you've got a couple of concurrent things going on in applications land. You've got Excel coming out for Mac to take advantage of the GUI. Meanwhile, and this strategy is just all over the place. I think that's an interesting thing to underscore about Microsoft in this era. They're trying a ton of stuff because they're paranoid. They don't want to miss the next wave.

Meanwhile, also in the applications group, Charles Simone has written Word. This is about a year before in 1983. Microsoft Word comes out for DOS.

Meanwhile, also in the applications group, Charles Simone has written Word. This is about a year before in 1983. Microsoft Word comes out for DOS.

Yes. So this is like, okay, we see the Xerox PARC stuff coming out in the Mac. Great. Excel will be for that. We want to develop Word. We're going to do that for DOS. Oh, but I can imagine how useful the mouse is going to be in a word processing environment. So they actually ship a mouse tied to the application that's not a part of DOS.

Yes. So this is like, okay, we see the Xerox PARC stuff coming out in the Mac. Great. Excel will be for that. We want to develop Word. We're going to do that for DOS. Oh, but I can imagine how useful the mouse is going to be in a word processing environment. So they actually ship a mouse tied to the application that's not a part of DOS.

And so this is how early we were in figuring out kind of what the split between applications and platforms were at this point in history. Microsoft thought maybe a mouse makes sense just for this one application, even though it doesn't do anything else for the rest of the command line interface.

And so this is how early we were in figuring out kind of what the split between applications and platforms were at this point in history. Microsoft thought maybe a mouse makes sense just for this one application, even though it doesn't do anything else for the rest of the command line interface.

Yes. So the decision for the Excel team is to focus on GUI. The whole marketing message is Excel on a Mac is better than Lotus 1, 2, 3 on a PC.

Yes. So the decision for the Excel team is to focus on GUI. The whole marketing message is Excel on a Mac is better than Lotus 1, 2, 3 on a PC.

You're starting to see truly divergent cultures at Microsoft between the systems group, which is currently making DOS and will soon make Windows or soon partner with IBM or soon do something else that we're getting into here in the next chapter of the story, and the applications group, which is

You're starting to see truly divergent cultures at Microsoft between the systems group, which is currently making DOS and will soon make Windows or soon partner with IBM or soon do something else that we're getting into here in the next chapter of the story, and the applications group, which is

is also currently a bunch of disparate applications and teams targeting disparate platforms, but is also about to become unified in their next chapter. And within the applications group, that next chapter is Microsoft Office. So in 1985, in January, the bundle is released. And it was originally called the Business Pack for Microsoft. And it started on the Mac.

is also currently a bunch of disparate applications and teams targeting disparate platforms, but is also about to become unified in their next chapter. And within the applications group, that next chapter is Microsoft Office. So in 1985, in January, the bundle is released. And it was originally called the Business Pack for Microsoft. And it started on the Mac.

Totally does. Now, they haven't acquired PowerPoint yet, or forethought, as we talked about eight years ago on Acquired, way back in history. So there's no PowerPoint. It's not part of the bundle. And so what you've got here on the Mac in the first version of Office is Word, which they've developed in-house, File, Chart, and Multiplan. This is this first notion of a suite.

Totally does. Now, they haven't acquired PowerPoint yet, or forethought, as we talked about eight years ago on Acquired, way back in history. So there's no PowerPoint. It's not part of the bundle. And so what you've got here on the Mac in the first version of Office is Word, which they've developed in-house, File, Chart, and Multiplan. This is this first notion of a suite.

So today we're very familiar with suite, creative suite over at Adobe. Software is sold this way. This was kind of the first time. And so what was actually happening is all of the bundling was happening in pricing, in marketing, and in manufacturing. And so you sort of had a single box that that they would ship with the different applications. By 1988 or 89, it was Word, Excel, PowerPoint.