Microsoft Word turns 18

Although I use either Borland/CodeGear Delphi or Visual Studio almost every day, there's one application I probably use even more often: word processing. And in my case, this application is Microsoft Word (when I'm not using Notepad or UltraEdit). Word has recently come to the respectable age of 18 years, as eWeek reports.

When you think about it, no matter how hard-core programmer you are, you probably need to use Word at least from time to time: for e-mail (if you use Outlook+Word for that), documentation, specifications, and so forth. Although the essentials of word processing haven't changed much since the first version of Word for Windows, the fact that Word is today very customizable piece of software and also highly programmable, makes it more than just a word processor. In fact, some ISVs have integrated their applications to Office platform so deeply, that the user doesn't need to step away from Word, Excel or Outlook. Developing add-ins and solutions for 2007 Office System is something I definitely want to investigate further this year. Stay tuned!