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Microsoft has launched a new slideshow presentation creator called Sway, which will replace the company’s well known PowerPoint in the Office 365.
PowerPoint has been the basis for all kinds of slide-based presentations in the past two decades, be them student projects or high profile investment plans. Most of you were required to fiddle with it at least once in your life – and whether you’ve liked it or not, it can still be considered as an iconic presence of the Windows era.
But as part of their Windows 10 transcend-to-the-next level philosophy, the company is going to replace it with a newer version in their Office 365 suit, called „Sway”. But before you PowerPoint sympathizers or diehard conservatives go into full nostalgic mode, take into consideration the fact that this will be no imposed upgrades – you’re still going to be able to use the familiar program.
That’s because Microsoft has announced that newer Office 365 versions will not exclude the possibility of using previous trial versions, which contain PowerPoint. It will also go as far as releasing an app which will allow these trial versions to be used on Apple devices, so this by no means signifies ending support for PowerPoint.
But those who will try out the new program are promised a better and easier slide-creating experience. I personally never thought PowerPoint to be excessively difficult, but some of my less tech savvy acquaintances had difficulties in effectively using it, so I guess this will be welcome for some people.
Linking into today’s heavily linked online world, Sway will allow users to directly drop texts, posts, images, videos and more from social media websites like Twitter or Facebook. But it doesn’t stop at this – it will seamlessly be able to import YouTube videos, Vine images and gifs and Soundcloud music. This is great for easing creative work, as many users already used contents from some of these sites in their presentations, but needed to individually download it and sometimes even optimize it for inclusion in PowerPoint.
Probably the best part of Sway though is the fact that it is free. Unlike PowerPoint, which had to be purchased as part of the Microsoft Office suite, Sway is available independently of its Office 365 suite and does not require users to be subscribed to the package. Microsoft Sway has officially left beta stage on Wednesday, and is currently available for download on Microsoft’s site, though Apple device users should know that its iOS version is still in beta.
Image Source: regmedia
