PowerPoint Historical Review

cathleen bellevillea bit better corporationwww.bitbetter.com

Who is this chick?

1989-1995: Microsoft– PowerPoint product manager– head of product planning for

graphics business unit

1995-2000: A Bit Better Corp.– creator of “Screen Beans”– PowerPoint consulting services– www.bitbetter.com

Prehistoric Presentations

slide presentations sent out to Genigraphics, Chartmasters– big business, slow turn-around,

good results

overhead presentations made by enlarging typewriter pages, and copying on to transparencies– tedious, slow, expensive, bad

results– any font you want as long as it

was Courier 12

1981: IBM PCs

•MS-DOS•Lotus 1-2-3•CPM-86•Word Perfect

1981: IBM PCs

•MS-DOS•Lotus 1-2-3•CPM-86•Word Perfect

1984: Apple Macintosh

•MacWrite•MacPaint•Word

1984: Apple Macintosh

•MacWrite•MacPaint•Word

April 1987: PowerPoint 1published by Forethought of Sunnyvale, CAoriginally named “Presenter” and designed for Windows 2.02 developers, 16 monthscoding done using a Lisa with two 5 MB hard drives connected via the serial portran on any Macintosh with 512K RAM and a floppy drive—no hard disk required

•All slides in one file

•Slide Master•Handout Pages

•Notes Pages•Slide Show•Lines, Boxes, Circles

•Black and White

•Hardbound Book

•All slides in one file

•Slide Master•Handout Pages

•Notes Pages•Slide Show•Lines, Boxes, Circles

•Black and White

•Hardbound Book

May 1988: PowerPoint 2

August 87, Microsoft acquires Forethought; product unit stays in CaliforniaAldus ships Persuasion 1.0 for Macintosh:– outliner– multiple masters– graphing– polygons

Harvard Graphics for DOSLotus Freelance for DOS

•Find/Replace

•Spell Checking

•Color (for Mac II)

•Color Schemes

•Shaded fills•Microsoft Packaging

•Genigraphics driverfor slides

•Find/Replace

•Spell Checking

•Color (for Mac II)

•Color Schemes

•Shaded fills•Microsoft Packaging

•Genigraphics driverfor slides

May 1990: Win PowerPoint 2

first presentation product for Windows 3.0fonts a major problem for everyoneHarvard Graphics announces move to OS/2; later ships Windows product with same UI as DOS versionLotus Freelance ships newly designed product on OS/2, then WindowsAldus slow to release buggy, slow Windows product with poor Mac file compatibility

•256-color support

•WYSIWYG, direct manipulation UI

•Bullets!•Graphing•Share files with Mac

•Translates Harvard Graphics Files

•256-color support

•WYSIWYG, direct manipulation UI

•Bullets!•Graphing•Share files with Mac

•Translates Harvard Graphics Files

May 1992: PowerPoint 3

first app to require Windows 3.1introduction of TrueType Fontsmajor release with shared code between Mac and Windows versionsAldus share leader on MacintoshHarvard Graphics share leader on PCsMicrosoft puts serious effort into promoting Microsoft Office

•Outlining•Drawing Tools•Transition Effects

•Graphing on Mac

•Builds•Flying Bullets•Sound & Video

•Pen Computing support

•Outlining•Drawing Tools•Transition Effects

•Graphing on Mac

•Builds•Flying Bullets•Sound & Video

•Pen Computing support

February 1994: PowerPoint 4.0

the suite battles beginLotus ships SmartSuite:1-2-3, Ami Pro, Freelance

GraphicsWord Perfect ships PerfectOffice:Word Perfect, Quattro Pro, Draw

PerfectHarvard Graphics can’t find a dance partnerAldus ignores Windows market, focuses on Mac

•Office look and feel: tooltips, toolbars, status bar

•Full OLE 2.0•AutoLayouts•AutoContent Wizard

•Word Tables•Rehearsal, Hidden Slides

•Office look and feel: tooltips, toolbars, status bar

•Full OLE 2.0•AutoLayouts•AutoContent Wizard

•Word Tables•Rehearsal, Hidden Slides

February 1994: PowerPoint 7

application version numbers go to hellMicrosoft owns major market share on PCs and Macs due to phenomenal sales of OfficeLotus bought by IBM who pretends not to noticeWordPerfect bought by NovellAldus acquired by Adobe and left to rotHarvard suffers slow agonizing death

•Rewritten in C++

•VBA programmability

•Real curves, textures

•New animation effects

•Meeting minder

•AutoCorrect, Insert Symbol

•Black & White View

•Rewritten in C++

•VBA programmability

•Real curves, textures

•New animation effects

•Meeting minder

•AutoCorrect, Insert Symbol

•Black & White View

May 1997: PowerPoint 97

most of original PowerPoint team has leftMicrosoft has dominant market share -- virtually no competitioncentral office development team makes most product decisionsfocus on electronic presentations and on-line documentsvirtually “documentation free”

•Office Assistant•File compression

•Save to HTML•Improved sound and animation controls

•Pack and Go•AutoClipArt•ScreenBeans •Transparent GIFs

•Office Assistant•File compression

•Save to HTML•Improved sound and animation controls

•Pack and Go•AutoClipArt•ScreenBeans •Transparent GIFs

June 1999: Office 2000

now 4 versions of Office, that ship nine different productstypical installation of Office Premium:626 MB for all nine apps

PowerPoint 2000

•Tri-Pane View

•Picture bullets

•Animated GIFs

•Save to Web

•AutoFit Text

•Real Tables

•Presentation Conferencing

•Aliased Fonts

•Tri-Pane View

•Picture bullets

•Animated GIFs

•Save to Web

•AutoFit Text

•Real Tables

•Presentation Conferencing

•Aliased Fonts

Shameless Self Promotion

www.bitbetter.com – powerpoint FAQ with many many

pages of questions– “ask powerpoint”: powerpoint

questions answered– powerpoint tips and tricks– resources for presenters– screenbeans clip art, with new

“business communication”collection

thank you for not throwing things

cathy bellevillea bit better corporationwww.bitbetter.com