MICROSOFT
POWERPOINT
HISTORY AND
DEVELOPMENT OF
MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
CREATION AT FORETHOUGHT (1984–1987)
• PowerPoint was created by Robert Gaskins and Dennis Austin at a software
startup in Silicon Valley named Forethought, Inc. Forethought had been founded
in 1983 to create an integrated environment and applications for future
personal computers that would provide a graphical user interface, but it had run
into difficulties requiring a "restart" and new plan.
• On July 5, 1984, Forethought hired Robert Gaskins as its vice president of
product development to create a new application that would be especially
suited to the new graphical personal computers, such as Microsoft Windows
and Apple Macintosh. Gaskins produced his initial description of PowerPoint
about a month later (August 14, 1984) in the form of a 2-page document titled
"Presentation Graphics for Overhead Projection”.
• By October 1984 Gaskins had selected Dennis Austin to be the developer for
PowerPoint. Gaskins and Austin worked together on the definition and design
of the new product for nearly a year, and produced the first specification
document dated August 21, 1985. This first design document showed a
product as it would look in Microsoft Windows 1.0, which at that time had not
been released
• Throughout this development period the product was called "Presenter." Then,
just before release, there was a last-minute check with Forethought's lawyers
to register the name as a trademark, and "Presenter" was unexpectedly
rejected because it had already been used by someone else. Gaskins says that
he thought of "PowerPoint", based on the product's goal of "empowering"
individual presenters, and sent that name to the lawyers for clearance, while
all the documentation was hastily revised
• Funding to complete development of PowerPoint was assured in mid-January,
1987, when a new Apple Computer venture capital fund, called Apple's
Strategic Investment Group, selected PowerPoint to be its first investment. A
month later, on February 22, 1987, Forethought announced PowerPoint at the
Personal Computer Forum in Phoenix; John Sculley, the CEO of Apple,
appeared at the announcement and said "We see desktop presentation as
potentially a bigger market for Apple than desktop publishing”.
• PowerPoint 1.0 for Macintosh shipped from manufacturing on April 20, 1987,
and the first production run of 10,000 units was sold out.
ACQUISITION BY MICROSOFT (1987–1992)
• By early 1987, Microsoft was starting to plan a new application to create
presentations, an activity led by Jeff Raikes, who was head of marketing for the
Applications Division. Microsoft assigned an internal group to write a
specification and plan for a new presentation product. They contemplated an
acquisition to speed up development, and in early 1987 Microsoft sent a letter
of intent to acquire Dave Winer's product called MORE, an outlining program
that could print its outlines as bullet charts.
• During this preparatory activity Raikes discovered that a program specifically
to make overhead presentations was already being developed by Forethought,
Inc., and that it was nearly completed. Raikes and others visited Forethought
on February 6, 1987, for a confidential demonstration.
• On April 28, 1987, a week after shipment, a group of Microsoft's senior
executives spent another day at Forethought to hear about initial PowerPoint
sales on Macintosh and plans for Windows. The following day, Microsoft sent a
letter to Dave Winer withdrawing its earlier letter of intent to acquire his
company, and in mid-May 1987 Microsoft sent a letter of intent to acquire
Forethought. As requested in that letter of intent, Robert Gaskins from
Forethought went to Redmond for a one-on-one meeting with Bill Gates in
early June, 1987, and by the end of July an agreement was concluded for an
acquisition.
• Microsoft's president Jon Shirley offered Microsoft's motivation for the acquisition: ”We
made this deal primarily because of our belief in desktop presentations as a product
category. ... Forethought was first to market with a product in this category”
• Microsoft set up within its Applications Division an independent "Graphics Business Unit"
to develop and market PowerPoint, the first Microsoft application group distant from the
main Redmond location. All the PowerPoint people from Forethought joined Microsoft,
and the new location was headed by Robert Gaskins, with Dennis Austin and Thomas
Rudkin leading development. PowerPoint 1.0 for Macintosh was modified to indicate the
new Microsoft ownership and continued to be sold.
• A new PowerPoint 2.0 for Macintosh, adding color 35 mm slides, appeared by mid-
1988, and again received good reviews. The same PowerPoint 2.0 product re-developed for
Windows was shipped two years later, in mid-1990, at the same time as Windows 3.0. Much
of the color technology was the fruit of a joint development partnership with Genigraphics,
at that time the dominant presentation services company.
• PowerPoint 3.0, which was shipped in 1992 for both Windows and Mac, added live video for
projectors and monitors, with the result that PowerPoint was thereafter used for delivering
presentations as well as for preparing them. This was at first an alternative to overhead
transparencies and 35 mm slides, but over time would come to replace them.
PART OF MICROSOFT OFFICE (SINCE 1993)
• PowerPoint had been included in Microsoft Office from the beginning. PowerPoint
2.0 for Macintosh was part of the first Office bundle for Macintosh which was
offered in mid-1989. When PowerPoint 2.0 for Windows appeared, a year later, it
was part of a similar Office bundle for Windows, which was offered in late 1990.
Both of these were bundling promotions, in which the independent applications
were packaged together and offered for a lower total price.
• PowerPoint 3.0 (1992) was again separately specified and developed, and was
prominently advertised and sold separately from Office. It was, as before, included
in Microsoft Office 3.0, both for Windows and the corresponding version for
Macintosh.
• The move from bundling separate products to integrated development
began with PowerPoint 4.0, developed in 1993–1994 under new
management from Redmond. The PowerPoint group in Silicon Valley was
reorganized from the independent "Graphics Business Unit" (GBU) to
become the "Graphics Product Unit" (GPU) for Office, and PowerPoint
4.0 changed to adopt a converged user interface and other components
shared with the other apps in Office.
• When it was released, the computer press reported on the change
approvingly: "PowerPoint 4.0 has been re-engineered from the ground
up to resemble and work with the latest applications in Office: Word 6.0,
Excel 5.0, and Access 2.0. The integration is so good, you'll have to look
twice to make sure you're running PowerPoint and not Word or Excel."
• Office integration was further underscored in the following
version, PowerPoint 95, which was given the version number
PowerPoint 7.0 (skipping 5.0 and 6.0) so that all the components
of Office would share the same major version number.
• Although PowerPoint by this point had become part of the
integrated Microsoft Office product, its development remained in
Silicon Valley. Succeeding versions of PowerPoint introduced
important changes, particularly version 12.0 (2007) which had a
very different shared Office "ribbon" user interface, and a new
shared Office XML-based file format.
• This marked the 20th anniversary of PowerPoint, and Microsoft held an
event to commemorate that anniversary at its Silicon Valley Campus for
the PowerPoint team there. Special guests were Robert Gaskins, Dennis
Austin, and Thomas Rudkin, and the featured speaker was Jeff Raikes, all
from PowerPoint 1.0 days, 20 years before.
• Since then major development of PowerPoint as part of Office has
continued. New development techniques (shared across Office) for
PowerPoint 2016 have made it possible to ship versions of PowerPoint
2016 for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and web access nearly
simultaneously, and to release new features on an almost monthly
schedule. PowerPoint development is still carried out in Silicon Valley as
of 2017.
• In 2010, Jeff Raikes, who had most recently been President of the
Business Division of Microsoft (including responsibility for Office),
observed: "of course, today we know that PowerPoint is often
times the number two—or in some cases even the number one—
most-used tool" among the applications in Office.
ADVANTAGES AND
DISADVANTAGES
• PowerPoint is the most popular presentation software. It is
regarded by many as the most useful and accessible way to create
and present visual aids to the audience.
• On the other hand, others believe it has created its own mind-set
which forces presenters to spend countless hours thinking in
PowerPoint and developing slides. A political party has even
formed to ban PowerPoint in Switzerland. Depending on one's
perspective, it seems that many advantages could easily be
viewed as disadvantages.
ADVANTAGES
Design:
• Quick and easy: The basic features are easy to master and can make you appear to be
organized, even if you are not.
• Simple bullet points: It can reduce complicated messages to simple bullet points. Bullet
points are a good basis for a presentation and remind the speaker of main points and the
organization of the message.
• Easy to create a colorful, attractive design: Using the standard templates and themes, you
can create something visually appealing, even if you do not have much knowledge of basic
graphic design principles.
ADVANTAGES
Design:
• No need for handouts: Looks good visually and can be easily read if you have a projector
and screen that is large enough for the entire room.
• Finally, PowerPoint is integrated with other products that allow you to include parts of
documents, spread sheets, and graphics.
Delivery:
• Audience size: PowerPoint slides are generally easier to see by a large
audience when projected than other visual aids.
• Easy to present: You can easily advance the slides in the presentation one
after another with a simple key stroke while still maintaining eye contact
with the audience.
• No need for handouts: They look good visually and can be easily read if
you have a projector and screen that is large enough for the entire room.
DISADVANTAGES
Design:
• Design power pointless: Gives the illusion of content and coherence, when in fact there is
really not much substance or connection between the different points on the slides.
• PowerPoint excess: Some speakers create presentations so they have slides to present
rather than outlining, organizing, and focusing on the message.
• Replaces planning and preparation: PowerPoint is a convenient prop for poor speakers, as it
can reduce complicated messages to simple bullet points and elevates style over substance.
• Oversimplification of topic: The linear nature of PowerPoint forces the presenter to reduce
complex subjects to a set of bullet items that are too weak to support decision-making or
show the complexity of an issue.
DISADVANTAGES
Design:
• Feature abundance: While the basic features are easy to use and apply, a speaker can get
carried away and try to use all the features at once rather than simply supporting a
message. Too many flying letters, animations, and sound effects without seeing much
original thought or analysis can be a real issue. In many cases, the medium shoves the
message aside.
• Basic equipment required: You will need to have a computer and projection equipment in
place to display the slides to the audience.
• Focus on medium, not message: Too many people forget that they are making a
presentation first and that PowerPoint is just a tool.
IMPORTANCE/ROLE OF
MICROSOFT
POWERPOINT
• PowerPoint is an easy tool for giving presentations. It helps in many
ways: Improves the audience’s focus. It allows working with other
people in a collaborative manner.
• PowerPoint is an amazing tool for any teacher to use because it helps
those who fail under the 3 types of learning styles: auditory, visual and
kinesthetic.
• PowerPoint presentations enable teachers to increase the quality of
written material and visuals they present to the students in the class.
PARTS AND FUNCTIONS
TITLE
BAR
displays the name of the presentation and the name of the program . Minimize ,
maximize , restore down and close window control buttons are grouped on the right side
of the title bar
QUICK ACCESS TOOLBAR
displays buttons to perform frequently used commands with a single click . Save , undo , repeat.
for commands that you use frequently you can add additional buttons to the Quick Access
Toolbar .
RIBBON
organizes commands on tabs and group them by topics for performing related presentation
tasks .
RIBBON TABS
display across the top of the ribbon and each tab , relates to a type of task-related activity
with powerpoint
PROGRAM LEVEL CONTROL
BUTTONS
minimizes , restores , or closes the program window
FILE TAB
displays lists of commands related to things you can do with a
presentation , such as opening , saving , printing , or sharing .
GROUPS
indicate the name of the groups of related commands on each displayed tab
VIEW BUTTONS
a set of commands that control the look of the presentation window
NOTES PANE
displays beside the slide pane and allows you to type notes regrading the active slide.
STATUS BAR
a horizontal bar at the bottom of the presentation windows that displays the current slide
number , number of slides in a presentation , theme name , view buttons , and zoom slider
SLIDES/OUTLINE PANE
displays either all of the slides in a presentation in the form of the miniature images called
thumbnails
SLIDE PANE
contains the current slide in your presentation. You can use the vertical scroll bar to view
other slides in the presentation.
HELPThe Help feature displays information on PowerPoint commands and features. You can
activate the help menu by clicking the Help help button or by pressing F1 on the keyboard.
TELL ME
A search box that lets you quickly find relevant commands.
BENEFITS OF
POWERPOINT
• Microsoft PowerPoint is an easy program to use and a
powerful tool for giving a presentation. Whether your
presentation needs a visual kick, tools for collaboration,
easy access or the ability to share information beyond the
initial meeting, PowerPoint is a good option. It can even
help reduce speaking anxiety by drawing eyes away from
the speaker and towards a screen. Just do not expect this
technology to substitute for sound and dynamic speaking
skills.
Visual Impact
• Making your presentation more interesting through the use of multimedia can help to
improve the audience's focus. PowerPoint allows you to use images, audio and video to
have a greater visual impact. These visual and audio cues may also help a presenter be
more improvisational and interactive with the audience. However, try not to overly rely
on these sources as your message might get lost in the clutter.
Collaboration
• PowerPoint allows you to work with other people in a collaborative manner. This is
especially useful in office settings where teamwork is key. Multiple people can collaborate
on and contribute to a presentation. By going to the "Review" tab at the top of the
program and clicking the "New Comment" button, you can leave notes and reposition
them on the screen for other team members to view. Comments can be an especially
beneficial tool for clarification.
Content Sharing
• Share your PowerPoint presentation with the world. Did someone miss your presentation? Have
them view it online at a time that is convenient for them. You can upload your presentation to
websites such as YouTube with everything featured in your work including all of the slides,
commentary and transitions. All you have to do is go to "File," "Save and Send" and "Create a
Video." The file will be saved in WMV format, which is capable of playback on Windows Media
Player and can be uploaded to most video sites.
Flexibility
• PowerPoint can be used in a number of different effective ways to communicate with your
audience. Slides are completely customizable to fit your needs. Depending on your approach,
you may want to have a presentation that is text-heavy, image-heavy or some combination of
both. Text-heavy presentations are generally good if you are giving a lecture to a group within
your company and want them to take notes. Image-heavy presentations can help to make your
presentation more conversational in style since there only visual cues. Combining the two
approaches gives listeners the benefits of both visual aids and notes.