Software Functions, capabilities and development - Research Paper Example

SOFTWARE FUNCTIONS, CAPABILITIES AND DEVELOPMENT Software Functions, capabilities and development Affiliation Introduction For this assignment I have chosen Microsoft Office Word 2007 (MS Word 2007). Basically, it is a word processing application that helps us create professional-looking files and documents. Additionally, it contains a wide variety of tools and functionalities which allow us to create and format our document in the new Microsoft Office Fluent user interface. In addition, commenting, rich review and comparison features and functionalities allow us to promptly collect and handle feedback from professors and colleagues.

Also, the high level data integration capabilities make sure that documents stay connected to vital sources of business information (Microsoft, 2012). However, I use this program for preparing my assignments and reports. It offers an excellent support of writing and formatting text. It contains a lot of features to support academic writing. For instance, it encompasses various academic writing styles such as APA, MLA and Turabian to help us write and add citations. Figure 1Interface of MS Office Word 2007 Hardware Requirements MS Word 2007 comes in the package of MS Office 2007 which contains various other programs such as Excel 2007, Access 2007 Groove 2007, InfoPath 2007, Communicator 2007, OneNote 2007, Outlook 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Visio 2007, Publisher 2007 and various other programs.

Additionally, MS Word 2007 can be installed and used on various platforms such as Windows XP (with service pack 2 or 3), Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista (Microsoft1, 2012). While talking about hardware requirements, it needs: CPU of 500 MHz or higher, RAM of 256 MB or higher, hard disk space of 1.5 GB or more (Mammadov, 2012), Alternatives of MS Word 2007 In addition, various other alternatives of MS Word 2007 include OpenOffice, which is an excellent alternative of MS Office 2007. It contains similar applications such as spreadsheets and Word Processor.

Another alternative of MS Office 2007 can be Google Docs, which allows us to use office applications online. There is another alternative of MS Office 2007 and that is Microsoft Office Web Apps. Similar to Google Docs, it is also a web-based office package (Marshall, 2012). Who makes it? MS Office Word 2007 is a product of Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft Corporation is a well-known multinational firm which provides computer software, services and Solutions for businesses and consumers. The head quarters of Microsoft Corporation are located in Redmond, Washington.

In addition, this firm was founded by current chairman William (Bill) H. Gates III in 1975 and co-founder Paul Allen. Additionally, Microsoft Corporation is very popular all over the world for its Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Office suite of products (such as MS Office 2003, MS Office 2007 and many more). Moreover, Microsoft Corporation offers a wide variety of products and services for all the kinds of consumers and businesses. In this scenario, some of its well-known products comprise Excel, Internet Explorer, PowerPoint and Word programs.

Microsoft also offers the Zune mp3 music device and the Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. In order to deal with the entertainment sector, Microsoft executes the MSNBC cable television network and the MSN Internet portal. Furthermore, in June 2009, Microsoft Corporation implemented a new search engine ‘Bing’, which is also acknowledged as a "Decision Engine". It is designed to gain insight and facts from the web (Batchelor, 2012). History of Product Historically, Microsoft Office was launched in 1992 with the initial version of the Windows operating system.

It was called the Office, 3.0, packaged in both a Macintosh OS version and Windows 3.11. In addition, it was one of the initial Microsoft products to emerge on both floppy disk and on CD-ROM. In this scenario, this helped the Microsoft Corporation to compete it with its primary competitors of the time. Additionally, this version of the MS Office included Word 2.0, PowerPoint 3.0, Excel 4.0 and Microsoft Mail, the initial version of Outlook (Hewitt, 2009). Hewitt (2009) outlines the history of MS Office in the following way: 1992 - Office 3.

0 1994 - Office 4.0 1994 - Office 4.3 1994 - Office for NT 4.2 1995 - Office 95 1998 - Office 97 1999 - Office 2000 2001 - Office XP 2003 - Office 2003 2007 - Office 2007 At the present, MS Office Word 2007 has become one of the basic needs of the people. It is very easy to use and learn. Figure1 shows the interface of MS Office Word 2007. As discussed above, it offers a lot of advantages such as it is easy to use, easy to learn and easy to build documents in MS Word 2007. It can be used by professionals and students.

It can be used to prepare every kind of documents. It contains a lot of functionalities, such as inserting tables, graphs and images. Its major disadvantage is its hardware and memory requirements for installation. In addition, due to its large size its processing takes a little extra time. I have been using this program for writing my assignments. It offers an excellent support for writing because it contains a lot of writing styles such as APA, MLA, Turabian. Thus, this program helps me in preparing my class assignments effectively and easily.

It also offers an excellent support for editing text. It also highlights any incorrect spellings or grammatical errors, which helps me improve my writing capability. I am quite satisfied with this program. In the light of the literature and my own experiences I conclude that MS Office Word 2007 is a wonderful program. I have been using this application since last 2 years and I am quite satisfied with this program due to its excellent support for writing stuff. References Batchelor, B. (2012).

History of the Microsoft Corporation. Retrieved June 02, 2012, from eHow.com: http://www.ehow.com/about_5089170_history-microsoft-corporation.html Hewitt, J. (2009, January 28). A Brief History of Microsoft Office. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from BrightHub.com: http://www.brighthub.com/office/collaboration/articles/13193.aspx Mammadov, T. (2012). Hardware Requirements for Office 2007. Retrieved May 31, 2012, from eHow.com: http://www.ehow.com/list_6364569_hardware-requirements-office 2007.html Marshall, J. (2012). The Four Best Free Microsoft Word Alternatives.

Retrieved June 02, 2012, from About.com: http://wordprocessing.about.com/od/choosingsoftware/tp/topwordalternatives.htm Microsoft. (2012). What's new in Microsoft Office Word 2007. Retrieved June 02, 2012, from Microsoft.com: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/what-s-new-in-microsoft office-word-2007-HA010074224.aspx Microsoft1. (2012). 2007 Microsoft Office System Requirements. Retrieved May 30, 2012, from http://www.microsoft.com/officebusiness/products/technical-requirements.aspx