Don Pickens <ms.word.mktg@applelink.apple.com>, Product Manager for Word for the Macintosh, writes:

In reply to TidBITS #217 on the Power Macintosh launch and Microsoft's participation:

At the Power Macintosh launch on March 14, Microsoft showed a very powerful demonstration of a solution built in AppleScript using support of AppleScript in the new versions of Word, Microsoft Excel and FoxPro. Clearly, this is a Mac-specific capability. The applications being demonstrated were in fact running on the Power Macintosh and Macintosh, and hence should remove doubt from customers' minds about the progress we're making toward shipping these applications this summer. And although we weren't able to ship by March 14, this is because rather than just porting our current applications to Power Macintosh, Microsoft is developing a whole new generation of applications for both the Mac and Power Mac. Our plans to ship new versions the five products we announced (Microsoft Excel, Word, FoxPro, Works and Office) actually demonstrates a stronger level of long term commitment. And, the minimal demo time we had didn't allow us to restate or show our already announced support for PowerTalk, QuickDraw GX and other Apple technologies. Although most of the features demonstrated are available in the Windows versions of our products, compatibility across platforms without requiring file conversions has become a prerequisite not only to the majority of our customers who share files with users of other platforms, but also to over two-thirds of Apple's top customers, as cited in MacWEEK in a January 1994 survey.