These exciting new attributes fueled strong sales of the Mac version, which topped sales of MS-DOS Word for at least four years. To this day, sales of Microsoft Word for the Mac are still going strong.

Welcome to Windows

Back on the home front, Microsoft's Windows environment was steadily growing in capability. With the increased success of the Mac version, it made sense that Microsoft would create a version of Word for its own GUI environment.

The company released Word 1.0 for Windows in 1989, which featured a Mac-like, full mouse-driven interface with drop-down menus and true WYSIWYG display features--and a price tag of $500. With the launch of Windows 3.0 in 1990 ($149.95; upgrade $79.95), sales of Word for Windows took off, and, over the following few years, Microsoft solidified its control of the PC-compatible word-processor market.

The GUI Goes DOS