Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system. The current versions are Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 for Windows and 2011 for Mac.
History
The original version of this program was created by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin of Forethought, Inc. Originally designed for the Macintosh computer, the initial release was called "Presenter". In 1987, it was renamed to "PowerPoint" due to problems with trademarks, the idea for the name coming from Robert Gaskins. In August of the same year, Forethought was bought by Microsoft for $14 million USD ($27.1 million in present-day terms), and became Microsoft's Graphics Business Unit, which continued to further develop the software.
PowerPoint changed significantly with PowerPoint 97. Prior to PowerPoint 97, presentations were linear, always proceeding from one slide to the next. PowerPoint 97 incorporated the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language, underlying all macro generation in Office 97, which allowed users to invoke pre-defined transitions and effects in a non-linear movie-like style without having to learn programming
PowerPoint 2000 (and the rest of the Office 2000 suite) introduced a clipboard that could hold multiple objects at once. Another noticeable change was that the Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearances in PowerPoint 97 (as an animated paperclip) had annoyed many users, was changed to be less intrusive.
History
The original version of this program was created by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin of Forethought, Inc. Originally designed for the Macintosh computer, the initial release was called "Presenter". In 1987, it was renamed to "PowerPoint" due to problems with trademarks, the idea for the name coming from Robert Gaskins. In August of the same year, Forethought was bought by Microsoft for $14 million USD ($27.1 million in present-day terms), and became Microsoft's Graphics Business Unit, which continued to further develop the software.
PowerPoint changed significantly with PowerPoint 97. Prior to PowerPoint 97, presentations were linear, always proceeding from one slide to the next. PowerPoint 97 incorporated the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) language, underlying all macro generation in Office 97, which allowed users to invoke pre-defined transitions and effects in a non-linear movie-like style without having to learn programming
PowerPoint 2000 (and the rest of the Office 2000 suite) introduced a clipboard that could hold multiple objects at once. Another noticeable change was that the Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearances in PowerPoint 97 (as an animated paperclip) had annoyed many users, was changed to be less intrusive.
