The evolution of Microsoft 365

The journey of Microsoft’s productivity suite started in the 80s when it was first introduced by Bill Gates as Microsoft Office, with three applications: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Since then, Office applications have captured the corporate world and home users alike. Anyone who has ever used a PC has had some experience with Microsoft Office at some point. It is hard to imagine a world without Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These applications have transformed the world since the day they were launched.

While one team in Microsoft was busy improving the already popular Office suite of applications, another team was busy shaping an enterprise-scale collaboration and content management platform called SharePoint. This platform offers online document storage and enables collaboration between teams. In addition, and since its days of inception, SharePoint has been built to be a highly extensible and customizable platform that allows developers and non-developers alike to extend its capabilities by building business solutions on top of it.

SharePoint was initially released as a standalone application for installation on a server (there are several companies that still use it on-premises) before becoming available on the cloud as SharePoint Online and as a member of the Microsoft 365 family.

Advancements in SharePoint have given birth to other technologies and tools that have now evolved into fully featured products themselves. The following are just some of those products:

• OneDrive: Older versions of SharePoint included a service called My Sites. My Sites were personal sites for every SharePoint user, a place where they could store their personal files. My Sites have now been replaced by OneDrive.
• Microsoft Teams: Teams has been through several pit stops before becoming Microsoft 365’s default communication tool. In 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype, a free piece of software that enables you to make VOIP calls and host video conferencing. After the acquisition of Skype, Microsoft replaced the business communication tool named Lync with a corporate version of Skype, called Skype for Business. Skype for Business has now been deprecated and replaced by Microsoft Teams.
• Power Automate: SharePoint as a platform had a workflow solution referred to as SharePoint workflows. The workflows were designed using a free tool called SharePoint Designer. Although SharePoint workflows were powerful, managing them was hard because of the lack of a visual tool. SharePoint workflows got deprecated with the advent of Power Automate, which had a nice web-based visual designer that was so easy to use that even non-developers could build workflow solutions themselves.
• Power Apps: Microsoft InfoPath was a popular tool for designing, editing, and distributing electronic forms. InfoPath forms could be connected to a variety of data sources and were often used along with SharePoint to extend the capabilities of SharePoint list forms. InfoPath has since been deprecated and replaced with a web-based forms designer known as Power Apps. Again, with this move, Microsoft has tried to make designing forms easier for non-developers. Going beyond forms, with the help of Power Apps you can build custom business apps that connect to your business data and run seamlessly in the browser or on mobile devices (phone or tablet).
• Power BI: In 2006, Microsoft acquired ProClarity and launched PerformancePoint as a business intelligence solution. It was discontinued in 2009 and paved the way for Power BI.
• Microsoft Viva: Microsoft Viva is the most recent addition to the Microsoft 365 family, with a growing set of features. It is a platform that combines modules for communication, learning, resources, and insights. For example, Viva Topics is used for making knowledge and expertise in an organization available via Teams and SharePoint. Viva Connections enables you to create personalized dashboards for your staff. Viva Learning lets you build a training hub that brings content from LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Learn, and other third-party content providers.

  Yet another module is Viva Insights, which focuses on your productivity by providing personalized insights about your emails, meeting schedules, calls, and chats. To learn more about Viva, check out two of the eBook chapters: Chapter 19, Viva Insights, and Chapter 20, Viva Learning.

• Microsoft Copilot: Microsoft Copilot a new entry in Microsoft 365 space, revolutionizes productivity by integrating AI into everyday tasks within Microsoft 365 apps. Leveraging advanced Large Language Models (LLMs), Copilot understands user input across Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more, enhancing specificity through grounding techniques. By accessing content from the Microsoft Graph, Copilot delivers context-aware responses and insights. Eligible for enterprise, business, and education customers with specific licensing requirements, Copilot streamlines workflows, boosts productivity, and enables users to harness the power of AI within the Microsoft ecosystem for enhanced efficiency and innovation.

If you flick to the last pages, you won’t find any chapters on Viva. That’s because these chapters are part of the online eBook that comes with this book! Going ahead, any references to chapters numbered 13 or higher are referring to the eBook.

Over the years, Microsoft has made other strategic acquisitions, such as Yammer and Mover, to consolidate its Microsoft 365 offering. They were soon joined by other online services, such as Stream, Planner, Sway, To Do, and so on.

Hopefully, that provides you with some context on how Microsoft 365 evolved. The next section explains why Microsoft 365 is right for any organization.