Microsoft Office, or simply Office, is a family of client software, server software, and services developed by Microsoft. It was first announced by Bill Gates on August 1, 1988, at COMDEX in Las Vegas. Initially a marketing term for an office suite, the first version of Office contained Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint. Over the years, Office applications have grown substantially closer with shared features such as a common spell checker, Object Linking and Embedding data integration and Visual Basic for Applications scripting language. Microsoft also positions Office as a development platform for line-of-business software under the Office Business Applications brand.
United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34, was a landmark American antitrust law case at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally monopolizing the web browser market for Windows, primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java.
Myst is an adventure video game designed by Rand and Robyn Miller. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and first released in 1993 for the Macintosh. In the game, the player travels via a special book to a mysterious island called Myst. The player interacts with objects and traverses the environment by clicking on pre-rendered imagery. Solving puzzles allows the player to travel to other worlds ("Ages"), which reveal the backstory of the game's characters and help the player make the choice of whom to aid.
Riven: The Sequel to Myst is a puzzle adventure video game, the second in the Myst series of games. Developed by Cyan Worlds, it was initially published by Red Orb Entertainment, a division of Broderbund. Riven was distributed on five compact discs and released for Mac and Windows personal computers on October 31, 1997, in North America; it was later released on a single DVD-ROM in 1998. Riven was also ported to several other platforms. The story of Riven is set after the events of Myst. Having been rescued from the efforts of his sons, Atrus enlists the help of the player character to free his wife from his power-hungry father, Gehn. Riven takes place almost entirely on the Age of Riven, a world slowly falling apart due to Gehn's destructive rule.
Cyan, Inc., also known as Cyan Worlds, Inc., is an American video game developer and publisher based in Mead, Washington. Founded as Cyan Productions by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, the company created the Myst series.
Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in subsequent versions. The first version in the 9x series was Windows 95, which was succeeded by Windows 98 and then Windows Me, which was the third and last version of Windows on the 9x line, until the series was superseded by Windows XP.
Pyst is an adventure computer game released in October 1996. It was created as a parody of the highly successful adventure game Myst. Pyst was written by Peter Bergman, a co-founder of the Firesign Theatre, and was published by Parroty Interactive, with Bergman, Stallone, Inc. as co-publisher. Mindscape began distributing the game on August 20, 1997. The parody features full motion video of actor John Goodman as "King Mattruss", the ruler of "Pyst Island". Versions of the game were produced for both the Windows PC and Apple Macintosh operating systems.
Myst is a franchise centered on a series of adventure video games. The first game in the series, Myst, was released in 1993 by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller and their video game company Cyan, Inc. The first sequel to Myst, Riven, was released in 1997 and was followed by three more direct sequels: Myst III: Exile in 2001, Myst IV: Revelation in 2004, and Myst V: End of Ages in 2005. A spinoff featuring a multiplayer component, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, was released in 2003 and followed by two expansion packs.
GameSpot is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition to the information produced by GameSpot staff, the site also allows users to write their own reviews, blogs, and post on the site's forums. It has been owned by Fandom, Inc. since October 2022.
Monster Truck Madness is a racing video game developed by Terminal Reality and published by Microsoft. It was released in North America on September 9, 1996. The game has twelve monster trucks and tasks the player with beating computer opponents. Checkpoints, multiple hidden shortcuts, and interactable objects commonly appear in the tracks. In the garage, the player modifies the truck to account for terrain surfaces. Online multiplayer is accessed with a modem, a local area network (LAN), or TCP/IP.
WCW Nitro is a professional wrestling video game based on the television show WCW Monday Nitro. Released by THQ for the PlayStation game console in 1998, the game featured a large roster of playable WCW wrestlers as well as full motion video clips of the television show. The game was followed by WCW/nWo Thunder, which was based on Nitro's Thursday night counterpart. Ports for Nintendo 64 and Microsoft Windows were released later in 1998 and 1999 with the updated roster featured in Thunder.
Star Warped is a first-person point-and-click adventure video game that parodies the Star Wars universe, specifically the original trilogy released between 1977 and 1983: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. It was created by Parroty Interactive, which was a division of the game's publisher, Palladium Interactive. Star Warped was released in the United States and Canada, for both Windows PC and Macintosh, in late 1997 as a follow-up to their debut Myst parody, Pyst. The game is no longer in release, as Parroty's parent company folded after being bought by The Learning Company in 1998. The game invited players to "Be seduced by the power of the Dork Side". Star Warped received mixed reviews from critics: some praised the game's variety, originality, and humor, while others dismissed it as lazy, unfunny, and dull.
Microsoft engineering groups are the operating divisions of Microsoft. Starting in April 2002, Microsoft organised itself into seven groups, each an independent financial entity. In September 2005, Microsoft announced a reorganization of its then seven groups into three. In July 2013, Microsoft announced another reorganization into five engineering groups and six corporate affairs groups. A year later, in June 2015, Microsoft reformed into three engineering groups. In September 2016, a new group was created to focus on artificial intelligence and research. On March 29, 2018, a new structure merged all of these into three.
EditDV was a video editing software released by Radius, Inc. in late 1997 as an evolution of their earlier Radius Edit product. EditDV was one of the first products providing professional-quality editing of the then new DV format at a relatively affordable cost and was named "The Best Video Tool of 1998". Originally EditDV was available for Macintosh only but in February 2000 EditDV 2.0 for Windows was released. With version 3.0 EditDV's name was changed to CineStream.
Cyclone Studios was an American video game developer and publisher based in San Mateo, California. It developed several titles for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer and later Microsoft Windows.
Danger Close Games was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in March 1995 as joint venture between DreamWorks SKG and Microsoft under the name DreamWorks Interactive, with studios in Redmond, Washington, and Los Angeles.
Microshaft Winblows 98 is a 1998 interactive comedy video game for Windows and Classic Mac OS. It parodies the then-upcoming Windows 98 operating system, as well as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. Released by Palladium Interactive during the United States v. Microsoft Corp. case and at a time when Microsoft, Windows, and Gates were easy targets for jokes, the game offers a satirical take on this ripe subject matter.
MSN Dial-up is an Internet service provider operated by Microsoft in the United States and formerly also in several other countries. Originally named The Microsoft Network, it debuted as a proprietary online service on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of Windows 95. In 1996 and 1997, a revised web-based version of the ISP was an early experiment at interactive multimedia content on the Internet.
Ed Bott is an American technology journalist and author, known for his books and articles on Microsoft Windows. He has been the editor for the U.S. version of PC/Computing and the managing editor for PC World in the past. In addition, Bott has written more than 25 books. The topics of his books include Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. As of 2014, Bott writes for ZDNet.
The X-Fools: The Spoof Is Out There is an interactive comedic 1997 video game developed by Parroty Interactive. It is a parody of supernatural television series The X-Files, which ran from 1993 to 2018. Released on the Mac and PC, it was the company's third game after Myst parody Pyst, and Star Warped which lampooned Star Wars, and would be followed by Microshaft Winblows 98, a parody of Microsoft Windows 98. The game was distributed throughout North America by Mindscape.
