Rui CarmoOffice was Microsoft’s traditional cash cow, representing a steady influx of revenue that the company tried to boost during the pre-cloud years by tying its components with portions of its enterprise offering.
The best-known example of this is Outlook (which is the main enabler for its Exchange mail server), but Access is also a strong suit where it regards accessing SQL Server databases in small/mid-sized businesses.
Microsoft also purchased Visio and rolled its flagship drawing/“lite” CAD product into [Office] 2003, therefore plugging one of the few missing feature sets on its product.
In the Mac OS X platform, Outlook was briefly replaced by Entourage.
There is no Visio equivalent, nor any hints of there ever being one in the future. The 2008 edition, however, sports decent drawing tools that are suitable for simple business diagramming.
Resources
| Category | Date | Link | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alternatives | 2025 | OnlyOffice | a free and open-source web-based office suite |
| CryptPad | a broader secure collaboration platform that includes OnlyOffice |
||
| Messaging | Element | a secure messaging platform based on the Matrix protocol |
|
| Mattermost | a secure collaboration platform for connecting teams, tools and processes |