End of an era for Office 2000

Support for Microsoft Office 2000 finally ended on Tuesday, 10 years after the productivity suite was launched.

Office 2000 had mainstream support until mid-2004, when its extended support period began. It is that extended support period that has now ended, according to Microsoft's road map for the product.

At its launch in 1999, Microsoft president Steve Ballmer said Office 2000, which retailed at a recommended price of $799 (around £500 at the time), "unleashes the power of the web work style, the most efficient way to work with business information and collaborate with others".

Later that year, Microsoft announced Office Online, a web-based version of the application suite. However, Office Online ended up becoming a resource site for Office users, rather than a software-as-a-service (SaaS) portal.

On Monday, Microsoft announced web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, although the company did not give a technology preview of the online applications. The announcement came at the same time as that of the Technical Preview for Office 2010.